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ROOSEVELT 
A Study in Ambivalence 



ROOSEVELT 

A STUDY IN AMBIVALENCE 



BY 

George Sylvester Viereck 

AUTHOR OF 
WJNIiVEH AND OTHER POEMS," "THE CANDLE AND 
THE FLAME." "CONFESSIONS OF A BARBARIAN" 
ET CETERA 



NEW YORK 

JACKSON PRESS, INC. 

1919 






Copyright, 1919 

BY 

GEORGK SYLVKSTKR VIERFXK 



JUL -7 1919 



©CI.A5364*il 



To my Wife 

Margaret Edith Viereck 



'\JEVER on the winning side, 
1 V Always on the right — 
Vanquished, this shall be our pride 
In the world's despite. 

Let the oily Pharisees 
Purse their lips and rant, 

Calm we face the Destinies: 
Better "can't" than cant. 

Bravely drain, then fling away, 
Break, the cup of sorrow! 

Courage! He who lost the day 
May have won the morrow. 



Apologia Pro Vita Sua 




© Underwood & Underwood 



^Hfz 4^4 4^^ 




HIS book, dear reader, will be a delightful 
'^'^^g secret between us. It will not be re- 
5>J viewed in the American press. It will 
not even be mentioned. My psycho- 
analytic interpretation of Colonel Roosevelt contains 
much that is startling. It adds to the portrait of Theo- 
dore Roosevelt a line here and there that cannot be 
erased by the relentless years, nor by their relenting 
historians. There is no question that I understand Theo- 
dore Roosevelt. On that point I have Mr. Roosevelt's 
own testimony. Nor is there any doubt that I can 
wield a pen. The very men who would place a Maxim 
silencer on my poor efforts bear witness to that fact, 
unless their own literary verdicts were indeed scraps of 
paper. Nevertheless, in the present instance, the voice 
of the reviewer will be hushed. There may be, now 
and then, a quotation from one of the Colonel's letters 
to me. There may be, here and there, a slur. But no 
honest criticism. 

How account for this phenomenon? Is it because 
the Poetry Society of America has revoked my poetic 



12 ROOSEVELT 

license? No, that is not the reason. Is it because I am 
excommunicated from the ranks of the Authors' 
League? In fact, if newspaper accounts may be 
trusted, its devotees are pledged never to utter the name 
of Viereck. "It is understood," one of the judges of 
the vehmic court confided to a reporter of a New York 
daily with a Paris edition, ''that hereafter no member 
of the Authors' League of America will mention Mr. 
Viereck's name again, nor refer to him or his writings 
in any way. Let the request be made to newspapers to 
follow a similar course. With his expulsion from the 
Authors' League and the record of that expulsion, his 
name becomes taboo." 

This mediaeval sentence sends no shudders down 
my spine. It carries no pontifical weight. New York 
is not Canossa. The little popes of the Authors' 
League have no influence beyond their door mat. The 
true cause for the reticence of the press where this 
book is concerned lies deeper. It is not due to fear of 
the authorities. I have no quarrel with that Past- 
Master of Censorship, the Postmaster-General. The 
Government of the United States finds no fault in me. 
In fact, Government agencies co-operated with me in 
several undertakings throughout the war. The Federal 
Government bears no blame. It is the Invisible Gov- 
ernment that interdicts this book. 



ROOSEVELT 13 

THERE are those who pooh-pooh this assertion. 
"You," they say, ''court unpopularity. Your 
egotism (Narcissus Complex, in the parlance of Freud) 
has offended many." True, I have enemies. But I 
also have friends. Le Gallienne called me "The mar- 
vellous boy who perished in conceit." "The marvellous 
boy who conquered in his pride," rejoined William 
Ellery Leonard. Self-assertion is no handicap. Im- 
pudence has its uses. I was not for that reason de- 
nied a hearing. My faults are assets. They are not 
responsible for the embargo on legitimate criticism. 

I have strayed far from the common path to con- 
found the Philistines. Do you think they ostracized me 
for that? Oh, no! The poor dears were grateful. I 
defied their conventions in prose and verse. My "Game 
at Love," revolutionary even now, was a daring ex- 
periment in 1906. It is the precursor of many plays 
that now fill the little theaters, although its miniature 
dramakins, written like Hardy's "Dynasts" and Byron's 
"Manfred" for mental performance, were actually pro- 
duced only in Japan. 

My Muse need not rouge her lips in order to meet 
the challenge of Swinburne's. "Nineveh," "The Candle 
and the Flame," and "Songs of Armageddon," cannot 
be accused of being anaemic. "Leaves of Grass" may 
be more starkly naked. It is not more audacious. Per- 
haps my probe sinks in too deep for the comprehension 
of middle-class intellects. My vocabulary alone sufHces 



14 ROOSEVELT 

to save me from the fate of Theodore Dreiser, whose 
masterly novel, "The Genius" is still on the index. The 
libido of the Comstockians is limitless. Their verbal 
paucity is astonishing. Their dictionary hardly sur- 
passes that of infantile mural decorators. My sins 
against Mrs. Grundy are not held against me. Mrs. 
Grundy secretly loves me. She absolves me because 
she does not understand me. 

**r)ERHAPS," one of my readers urges, ''the writers 
1 of America do not forgive you for descendmg 
from Parnassus into the arena of politics. Poetry and 
politics are uncongenial companions." In these days 
even the shoemaker is a syndicalist. He no longer 
sticks to his last. Must the poet stick to his lyre ? Who 
shall say that H. G. Wells, Henri Barbusse, and Ro- 
main Rolland have no share in shaping the destiny of 
mankind? The typewriter is mightier than the ma- 
chine gun. Logic, more potent than Busy Berthas. 
Time turns the old days to derision. An academician 
in the White House gives a new twist to the history 
of the world. Two intellectuals, Lenine and Trotzky, 
are making the most stupendous experiment in the 
evolution of human freedom, an experiment involving 
one hundred and fifty million people. A third-rate 
novelist is premier of France. 

The greatest living playwright, deserting the boards 
for the time being, teaches statesmen straight think- 



ROOSEVELT 15 

ing. The world's greatest pianist is molding the fate 
of Poland. A minor poet, Kurt Eisner, was the first 
dictator of the Bavarian Republic. A great poet 
fanned Italy's martial fervor. D'Annunzio did his 
utmost to embroil his country in war. I, in my humble 
way, did my utmost to keep my country at peace. 
D'Annunzio succeeded. I failed. He is proud of his 
efforts. I am not ashamed of mine. History may 1 
grant me a footnote in the annals of the Great War. 
That is no reason why Literature should not give me a 
chapter in hers. No, politics is not responsible for the 
attempt to excommunicate me. 



TENDER souls may feel aggrieved because, for- 
sooth, no political movement can be carried on 
without funds. The most fetching sonnet will not 
pay for a two-cent stamp. Printers insist on cold cash. 
In that respect they differ in no way from the China- 
man. "No money, no washee." The most fiery 
rhetoric cannot fill one pay envelope. Landlords are 
singularly unsympathetic. Fighting, almost single- 
handed, against the greatest combination of political 
power and finance ever aggregated in one camp, I 
turned for assistance to those to whose interest it was 
to help me. Is a reformer insincere because he accepts 
campaign contributions? Is Billy Sunday a hypocrite 
if he grants his flock the privilege of contributing 



16 ROOSEVELT 

towards the expenses of his attempt to make the world 
safe for Jesus? 

Before America entered the war, as Dr. Edmund von 
Mach pointed out in a hearing before the Propaganda 
Investigating Committee of the United States Senate, 
there was in this country an official German Propa- 
ganda, exactly as there was an official American Propa- 
ganda in England during the Civil War, when Lincoln 
sent Thuriow Weed, Senator Evarts, and Henry Ward 
Beecher across the ocean to keep our British cousins 
neutral. Count Bernstorff, like President Wilson, la- 
bored to maintain peace. In addition, there was a 
propaganda of American citizens, many, but not all, of 
German descent, who believed that it was to the interest 
of America to remain aloof from European entangle- 
ments. The amount appropriated for the purpose of 
the so-called German Propaganda was pitiful, compared 
with the enormous sums lavished by its opponents un- 
der the leadership of Lord Northcliffe and Sir Gilbert 
Parker. 

German Propaganda was a direct descendant of 
British Propaganda. The relation between the two is 
that of cause and effect. The one necessarily gave 
birth to the other. It was a method adopted, for solely 
patriotic reasons, by many Americans to combat British 
domination in American life. Some fight the Devil 
with Holy Water. Others prefer to fight fire with fire 
A combination of both modes of procedure suggests 



ROOSEVELT 



17 



itself to the judicious. British Propaganda is a chronic 
disease of the American body poUtic. In 1914 it be- 
came epidemic. It is a subject that thrusts itself upon 
us again and again in the course of this diagnosis. 
The so-called German Propaganda almost succeeded, 
against tremendous odds and wellnigh invincible ob-- 
stacks, in its object, to keep us out of war. Its failure 
in the end was due to the inept declaration of unre- 
stricted submarine warfare by the German Government 
and to the preposterous Zimmermann note. German 
Propaganda, in other words, was defeated, not in 
Washington, but in Berlin. 

In spite of its restricted expenditures, this campaign 
had to be financed. I printed and distributed millions 
of pamphlets. The postage alone would have swal- 
lowed my royalties. I would gladly have sacrificed 
my entire fortune to propitiate the powers that made 
for war. Yet all I have in the world would have hardly 
sufficed to pay the printer's bill for one week. The 
other side probably expended ten dollars to our one! 
These facts are matters of common knowledge. The 
objection to this phase of propaganda is the rankest 
hypocrisy. The reason for the grievance against me 
lies deeper still. 

WHAT is that? My pro-Germanism? Fiddle- 
sticks! My championship of Germany did not, 
at first, tell against me. I never concealed my German 



18 ROOSEVELT 

affiliations. While I was still in my teens the late Pro- 
fessor Hugo Muensterberg, of Harvard, introduced me 
to the Boston Authors' Club as ''Germany's first con- 
tribution to American literature." Julia Ward Howe, 
the president of the club, did not remonstrate with the 
professor. Thomas Wentw^orth Higginson, who pre- 
sided that evening, received me into his bosom; and 
that oracle of New England, the Boston 'Transcript," 
proclaimed my talents "a gift straight from the gods." 

"The splendid heritage of two languages has fallen 
to me from a German father and an American mother," 
I proudly proclaimed in the preface to "Nineveh." In 
the preface to the "Candle and the Flame," I describe 
at length my first experience as an American Exchange 
Poet at the University of Berlin. In the "Confessions 
of a Barbarian," I portray myself as a young American 
barbarian who for the first time finds himself face to 
face with Kultur. The book is a panegyric on Ger- 
many. Nevertheless, it was greeted with shouts of ap- 
proval from the majority of its American critics. 

Even my tribute to the Kaiser, "O Prince of Peace, 
O Lord of War" (published in the "Songs of Arma- 
geddon"), was widely acclaimed and universally re- 
printed. Perhaps the public was prepared for my 
dithyrambic praise of the Kaiser by the rhapsodies of 
Nicholas Murray Butler on the same subject. May I 
not here make a belated acknowledgment of my indebt- 
edness to President Butler? His enthusiasm was in- 



ROOSEVELT 19 

fectious. My Muse merely lisped in numbers the echoes 
of his strain. This acknowledgment discharges my 
obligation. Baked, like some hapless antediluvian fos- 
sil, in the lava of my eloquence, his name may escape 
oblivion. 



BUT what of Ireland? Many who would forgive 
Pro-Germanism in me. resented my solicitude for 
Irish Independence. They confound American patriot- 
ism with loyalty to Great Britain. All the little John 
Bullocks shuddered when I took John Bull by the horns. 
They deny he has horns. They playfully conceal even 
his cloven hoof. Uncle Sam employed in one of his 
bureaus Mr. Blank, a dollar-a-year man, who, in his 
private capacity, was the publisher of thrilling detective 
fiction. The war gave him the opportunity to trans- 
late his grotesque theories into practice. Eagerly he 
tracked the Pro-German criminal to his lair, according 
to the most approved methods of the infallible Hawk- 
shaw. When facts failed him, he drew upon his in- 
exhaustible imagination. German-Irish plots were his 
dearest hobby. Eventually the activities of this ama- 
teur detective became embarrassing to the authorities. 
He was removed to a field where his talents as a spin- 
ner of dime-novel yarns were unable to jeopardize the 
good name of the Government and the lives of his fel- 
low men. 



20 ROOSEVELT 

Mr. Blank, at an informal hearing where I appeared 
as a matter of courtesy to the Government, was sud- 
denly sprung upon me. He had been glaring at me 
ferociously for over an hour. I consented to answer 
a few questions from him, but objected to the offensive- 
ness of his manner. He humbly apologized and prom- 
ised to be as tender with me ''as a mother with her 
suckling babe." He succeeded in repressing his natural 
inclinations until the question of Ireland was raised. 
**Have you," he roared, "met Sir Roger Casement?" 
I regretted that I had not had the honor. "But," I 
said, "I have dedicated a poem to him." "Don't you 
know that he was a traitor?" he shouted. "No more," 
I replied, "than George Washington." H Mr. Blank 
was white before, he now grew whiter. In his rage 
he surpassed himself. Addressing me in language unfit 
for a bawdy house, or for quotation, he shrieked: "If 
you said that to me on the street I would knock you 
down." 

Evidently this remark was made with the intention to 
goad me into an assault upon an officer of the law. The 
insult itself would have been brazenly denied. Such 
a lie would have seemed a white lie to the ill-favored 
gangsters who were determined to "get me." Penetrat- 
ing their motive, I gazed at Mr. Blank half with amaze- 
ment, half with compassion. His case, to my mind, 
was not lacking in pathological elements. Turning to 
the official under whose auspices the hearing was os- 



ROOSEVELT 21 

tensibly taking place, I remarked with the lift of an 
eyebrow, 'This is hardly parliamentary language," and 
demanded protection from insult. Needless to say, the 
incident was stricken from the record. I choose to pre- 
serve it here. What is more, I shall also cite my poem 
in commemoration of Ireland's bloodiest Easter : 

THE STING 

In Memory of Padraic Pearse and 
Roger Casement 

Not all the blood on Stephen s Green they shed, 
Thy murdered Pearses, and thy Casement's fate, 
Can add one fathom to thine ancient hate, 

Nor make thy gaoler's gory hand more red, 

For persecution is thy daily bread. 

Death has no sting, since through thy dungeon's gate 
Falls the first danm. Ah, thou hast learned to zvait, 

A crown of thorns upon thy tragic head ! 

But that this land for zvhom thy sons have bled 
As for their ozvn, forgetful of her dead, 

Unto the foe betrayed both thee and them, 
That one amongst us played the Judas part. 

Blots out the stars in Freedom's diadem. 
And drives a knife in every freeman's heart. 



22 ROOSEVELT 

THESE lines were inspired by John Devoy's state- 
ment that Sir Roger Casement and Padraic Pearse 
were betrayed to the English hangman by a denaturalized 
American citizen. The emotion of the poem is genuine, 
even if the information should prove to be spurious. I 
hope Mr. Blank will paste this sonnet in his scrap-book. 
Or, if he has no scrap-book, let him deposit it in his 
pipe, and smoke it. I am discussing my altercation 
with Mr. Blank, not because the incident is of intrinsic 
importance, but because it is typical of the Reign of 
Terror induced in every part of tlie country by lawless 
private agencies abusing specious or borrowed author- 
ity to torture and bulldoze American citizens. Wrapped 
in the flag the repressed Sadism of generations found 
its release in brutal persecution. Many months later, 
I made the amazing discovery that Mr. Blank, the pub- 
lisher, as distinguished from Mr. Blank, the sleuth, had 
sold the imprint of his firm for the publication of a 
German Propaganda book. It was an excellent book. 
It went straight to the mark. A bull's-eye shot. 

Perhaps, unconsciously, Mr. Blank was a violent 
Irish-German sympathizer. Here, too, we may find 
that element of ambivalence of which we shall hear more 
anon. For I can hardly believe that the passage of 
German money, involving about five hundred dollars, 
would have been sufficient in itself to overcome Mr. 
Blank's moral scruples. Undaunted by my experience 
with Mr. Blank, I remained a champion of Self-Deter- 



ROOSEVELT 23 

mination for Ireland. This attitude doubled the num- 
ber of my foes. It infuriated many Blanks. The green, 
white and orange flag of the Irish Republic produces 
on them the psychological effect of a red rag on mem- 
bers of that family, noted more for its powers of 
multiple mastication than for its intelligence, of 
whom Pythagoras slaughtered one hundred when he 
robbed the hypothenuse of its secret. Since that time, 
as Heine observes, all bovines tremble when a new truth 
is discovered. Nevertheless, even my love for Ireland 
does not account for the rancor of my opponents. 

NEITHER my Pro-Germanism nor my Gaelic 
affiliations are responsible for the boycott of 
my Muse. My real offence, surprising as this may 
seem, is nothing less than my Americanism. When 
I adopted the motto, "America First and America 
Only," my goose was cooked. Cooked? Toasted 
brown would be more correct. The constant chatter 
about German Propaganda is intended to distract our 
attention from another, far more formidable, propa- 
ganda. This propaganda began in 1776. It has con- 
tinued to the present day. 

Benedict Arnold was the first of a long line of 
propagandists. The torch of Toryism passed from 
hand to hand. In 1820 a Higginson in Boston headed 
a movement for the secession of Massachusetts from 
the Union, with the object of rejoining the ''Mother 



24 ROOSEVELT 

Land." The secret will of Cecil Rhodes* makes definite 
provisions for a campaign to regain the "Lost Colo- 
nies." Huge Foundations support this movement with 
more than a king's ransom. It appears in many pro- 
tean disguises. 

Corps of writers, editors, lecturers, university presi- 
dents, corporation lawyers, professors and poets, all 
''dupes and tools of foreign influence," are the mummers 
in this puppet show. The ebbs and tides of American 
politics reflect merely different phases of one gigantic 
purpose. Now silent, now vociferous, now covert, 
now in the open, it never ceases and never sleeps. If 
my sins had been seventy times seven, they would have 
been shriven. What could not be passed over nor con- 
doned was my reiteration of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. 

"True," I said, "I am of German blood. I am proud 
of my ancestry. I desire to interpret what is best in 
the land of my fathers to the land of my children. But 
America is first in my heart. The American of to- 
morrow must not be a Germanized American, and he 
shall not be an Englishman. Let him take from Ger- 
many and from England and from all lands whatever 
gifts there be, but let him place all in the lap of 
Columbia." 

* For more information on this remarkable document, consult 
"The Life of the Right Hon. Cecil Rhodes," by Sir Lewis Mitchel, 
Vol. I, chapter VI, page 689. 



ROOSEVELT 25 

MY eyes are not blinded by the prejudices of race. 
I am willing to look beyond the confines of na- 
tionality. Gladly would I swear fealty to a Parliament 
of Man, but I refuse to take stock in a close corpora- 
tion of the nations of the Entente, monopolizing land, 
sea and air, with John Bull in control of the majority 
holdings. To preach this doctrine is to commit literary 
suicide. It is no longer good form to admire George 
Washington. The power that revises our school his- 
tories (even if it cannot alter our history) places its 
iron fist upon the mouths of those who promulgate 
the gospel of Americanism. 

Our political life boasts of many apostles, preaching 
many divergent articles of faith. The Great Silent 
Government forgives all heresies save one : *Thou Shalt 
Have No Other Country Above America." The 
prophet whose sermon runs thus, his name is anathema. 
William Randolph Hearst, William Jennings Bryan, 
Robert M. La Follette, Champ Clark, James R. Mann, 
Daniel F. Cohalan, William Hale Thompson and Samuel 
Untermyer, no matter how far apart their political poles 
may be, are equally under the ban. Of late, something 
of the curse seems to have fallen even on President Wil- 
son. And I, humble poet though I be, feel its heavy 
hand. 



26 ROOSEVELT 

THE vengeance of the Invisible Governors reaches 
far. No less than forty life insurance companies 
refused to accept me after America entered the war, 
with the feeble excuse that my political views entailed 
too great a risk. What a comment on American democ- 
racy if this were anything but a disingenuous pretext! 
The Insurance Trust blacklisted me because, long be- 
fore the United States joined the ranks of the belliger- 
ents, I protested in my journal against their reckless 
investments in the war loans of foreign nations. The 
"War Plotters of Wall Street," by Charles A. Collman, 
to which I gave circulation, exposed the secret ramifi- 
cations and interlinking directorates of the insurance 
companies and the offices of foreign banking interests. 
My objections against loans by American financial in- 
stitutions to the Government of the Czar were not 
forg^otten in this connection. 

To deny my family the protection of insurance was 
merely one mode of attack. Every obstacle was placed 
in the way of my business. Bookstalls, coerced and 
intimidated, no longer dared to display my magazines 
or my writings. It was made difficult for me to obtain 
office space in New York. My publishers, MoflFat, Yard 
& Co., sullenly requested me to take back my books, the 
very books to which they owe their original prestige. 
In five heavy boxes, the plates of my works (both prose 
and verse), descended upon me. Like so many chickens, 
my songs came home to roost. 



ROOSEVELT 27 

Mobs were inspired by insidious newspaper cam- 
paigns to menace my house in a peaceful suburb mis- 
named Mount Vernon. I heard the tramp, tramp, tramp 
of many feet. Automobiles, mounted by men in uni- 
form, were ready to kidnap me. These things were 
not spontaneous. They were not begotten of war ex- 
citement. Everything was carefully, skillfully, cau- 
tiously planned. 

Officials were found who, prostituting their brief 
authority for private political gain, poisoned the public 
mind, not by prosecuting me — there was no basis for 
prosecution — but by publishing piecemeal the distorted 
or perjured testimony of dismissed and discredited 
agents, of scoundrels and scalawags. Bureaus, hardly 
intended for such purposes, burnt midnight electricity 
at the expense of the public to encompass my ruin. My 
employees were alternately threatened with internment 
and tempted with offers of lucrative situations to bear 
false witness against me. 



THE chief object of these machinations was to pro- 
vide the press with specious charges and sinister 
insinuations. The Department of Justice, true to its 
name, resisted the pressure of my detractors. But the 
desired end, to discredit me, to exclude me from the 
work of reconstruction on an all-American basis, was, 
at least, partly, accomplished. My efforts to aid the 



28 ROOSEVELT 

Government, through the instrumentality of the Agricul- 
tural and Industrial Labor Relief, by finding work for 
those unfortunates whom the war had deprived of their 
livelihood, was represented as a diabolical scheme to 
gather information for the Wilhelmstrasse ! 

My very success was turned against me. The 6,000 
applicants who were indebted to my bureau for the 
opportunity of earning their bread on farm or factory 
became 6,000 spies. Did the newspapers believe this 
preposterous twaddle? Of course not. They could not 
think so little of our Secret Service, no matter how low 
they may have rated my patriotism. The actual con- 
duct of the Agricultural and Industrial Labor Relief 
was in the hands of an expert, Mr. Gerard M. Hessels, 
recommended to me by the Federal State Superintend- 
ent of the United States Employment Service for the 
State of New York. When the task of the Labor 
Relief was, in a large measure, completed, Mr. Hessels 
received a commission from the Department of Labor. 
However, no interviewer ever sought out Mr. Hessels, 
for the simple reason that the newspapers did not de- 
sire the facts. They preferred to obtain their informa- 
tion from the ex-convicts attached to the staff of a local 
political officeholder, hankering for notoriety and re- 
election. 

The campaign of vilification did not stop here. My 
personal integrity was questioned. I was portrayed as 



ROOSEVELT 29 

a selfish exploiter, a ravenous wolf in the sheep's clothes 
of charity. The object of these tactics was to alienate 
my following. Fortunately, the attempt proved futile. 
The Agricultural and Industrial Labor Relief published 
careful financial statements. Our books were open to 
all. But no newspaper, no official, made the slightest 
attempt to inquire into the truth of these charges. My 
replies were ignored. The figures of our expert account- 
ants appeared nowhere except in my own magazine. My 
first impulse was to sue my defamers for libel. How- 
ever, my attorneys had less faith in American justice 
under the pressure of war conditions than I had. Inci- 
dentally, it was by no means an easy task when the 
storm was at its height to obtain legal representation! 
All this seems now like an evil dream. It will seem in- 
credible in the future. ' - 



FORTUNATELY I had an attorney who never 
deserted me. He was at my elbow day and night. 
I think that I am responsible for the touch of silver on 
his youthful head. It is no easy task to keep a man 
out of jail who insists on free speech even in times of 
war. The following is a Hteral transcript of an incident 
in the office of my attorney. I reprint it here not for 
its literary value, but because of its importance as a 
historical document. 

The dramatic rights are not reserved. 



30 ROOSEVELT 

BEYOND REDRESS 

A Comedy in One Act 

Time: America Under the Terror. 

Place: The Office of a Distinguished Attorney. 

DRAMATIS PERSONAE. Attorney I. 

Attorney II. 
An Editor. 

Editor. {Excitedly.) They accuse me of every crime 
in the calendar. {Points to a bulging envelope marked 
"Romeikej") I have robbed the poor and fleeced the rich. 
They v^ill next accuse me of stealing silver spoons. . . . 

Attorney I. Your friends v^on't believe these stories. 
Nothing that you can say will convince your enemies. 

Attorney II. {Nods wisely.) 

Editor. But can I not sue them for libel? They at- 
tribute to me statements that I never made. They saddle 
me with offenses of which I am unmistakably innocent. I 
am not a plaster saint, but I have always held my honor 
inviolate. I want to vindicate it in court. 

Attorney II. That would be an expensive and, un- 
der the circumstances, a futile proceeding. 

Editor. Damn the expense! They credit me with 
riches beyond my dreams, but if I can collect damages 
for all the slanders printed about me, I could retire from 
business. 

Attorney I. You will not be able to collect six cents. 



ROOSEVELT 31 

Editor. What? Am I not to defend my reputation? 
My detractors have taken the most patriotic and the most 
unselfish thing I did in my Hfe and turned it into a club 
against me. 

Attorney II. It will be a boomerang. 

Editor. It may be a boomerang, but what good will 
that do me if the public merely sees the lump on my head? 

Attorney II. Suing newspapers is always pretty poor 
business. In times like these, you have no chance at all. 
There is an old legal maxim that for every wrong there 
is a redress. But that isn't true. There is no redress for 
some wrongs. 

Editor. You mean to say that I must calmly submit to 
these villainous persecutions? 

Attorney I. Supposing you sue. They will put you 
on the witness stand. They will probe every act of your 
life. They will go back to the day of your birth. They 
may go even beyond that. The question of your innocence 
or your guilt will not figure at all. They will ask you: 
Are you a German? 

Editor. I am an American citizen. 

Attorney I. They will ask you: Where were you 
born? W^here is your father? Where is your mother? 
What did you say about the Lusitania? Deny, if you 
dare, that you once had a cup of tea with von Papen. The 
ghosts of your editorials will be cited against you. Every 
fine that ever appeared in your paper will be perverted. 

Editor. I am guilty of no disloyalty. Like many 
thousands, perhaps millions, of good citizens of the United 



32 ROOSEVELT 

States, I did not sympathize with our present associates 
in the war. My allegiance is, was, and always has been, 
with my country, the United States. 

Attorney II. {Wearily.) I know. 

Editor. My accusers spread all manner of false im- 
pressions by rehearsing accounts of my actions prior to 
April 6, 1917. But they cannot discover any act on my 
part that has not been absolutely loyal and patriotic. 

Attorney I. It makes no difference. They will create 
an atmosphere. They will introduce the race issue. They 
will beat the drum in the jury room. 

Attorney II. If no jury could be found to convict 
the murderers of Praeger, the young German who was 
lynched in Illinois, what jury will punish your traducers 
for libel? 

Editor. It is perfectly plain that these people are at- 
tempting to undermine the faith of my readers in me in 
order to destroy whatever power for good I may possess 
now and in the future. If I cannot sue them for libel, 
may I not at least issue a statement that will raise hell? 

Attorney II. {Puts up his hands deprecatingly.) 

Editor. {Takes out a voluminous manuscript from his 
pocket and places it in the hands of Attorney /. The paper 
audibly sizzles.) 

Attorney I. {Reads the statement. A broad smile 
spreads over his features.) Good for you! It's excel- 
lent! 

Editor. I am glad you like it. 

Attorney I. Yes, but don't publish it. 

Editor. Why not? 



ROOSEVELT ^^ 

Attorney I. It is not necessary to howl with the 
wolves, but at least give them no opportunity for howling 
at you. The more you have to say, the more chance you 
give them to get back at you. 

Attorney II. The channels of publicity are open to 
your foes. They are not open to you. Their statements 
are carried on the front page. How much of your state- 
ment would ever get into print ? 

Editor. But I must make a statement in justice to my 
readers, in justice to my followers, in justice to those who 
are defending my name and who are helpless unless I give 
them a weapon. 

Attorney II. {Shakes his head.) 

Attorney I. {Thinks for a moment, then laboriously 
writes out a statement. He writes for several minutes. 
The Editor watches him with pleased expectation. Turn- 
ing to Attorney II, he hisses.) You see 

Attorney II. {Looks grimly sardonic.) 

Attorney I. {Finishes the statement. He hands it to 
the Editor. It does not sizzle.) 

Editor. {Reads it with a long face.) Well, it is not 
exactly a 42-centimeter, but it is better than nothing. May 
I release it at once ? 

Attorney II. {Throws up his hands in horror.) Such 
a step would be extremely injudicious. It is wise to let 
these attacks die out. The public will take them for their 
true value in time. Your friends are discounting them 
even now. Having followed the lies and misrepresenta- 
tions in the newspapers in the last few years, they will 
treat the slurs upon you with the contempt they deserve. 
If not, they are not worth being called your friends. 



34 ROOSEVELT 

Editor. (Looks imploringly at Attorney /.) But I 
must have my say. I am a fighter. I cannot quit. 

Attorney I. I am afraid I agree with my colleague. 
I cannot permit you to make a statement. Stay in your 
bombproof. This is not the advice you want from an 
expensive lawyer, but it is the best advice I can give you. 

Attorney II. (Nods approvingly.) 

Editor. {Throivs up his hands in despair.) 

Curtain falls. 

A Voice from the Audience. What have you to say 
for yourself? 

Editor. On advice of counsel, I decline to answer. 

Voice. What do you think of it all? 

Editor. On advice of counsel, I refuse to think. 

The lights go out. Total darkness envelopes the theatre. 

DAY after day, throughout this period, I was lam- 
basted in the press as an arch conspirator. Yet, the 
most cursory examination of my publication would have 
revealed that, months before the break, I supported the 
enlightened policies of President Wilson. Mr. Wilson's 
speech of January 22, 1917, seemed to me a new Sermon 
on the Mount. I advocated his Fourteen Theses. In 
fact, Mr. Roosevelt, in a signed statement issued 
shortly before his death, insisted that, outside of my- 
self and Mr. Hearst, the President's program had no 



ROOSEVELT 35 

supporters. This was, of course, untrue, but it con- 
firms my assertion. I frequently championed Mr. 
Wilson's inspired doctrines even after exigencies of 
statecraft compelled him to abandon them. I stood up 
for Woodrow Wilson — even against Woodrow Wilson. 

Nevertheless, the campaign against me continued 
merrily. Journalistic strumpets were hired to "expose" 
and denounce me. The Vigilantes, a band of literary 
war profiteers, inspired chiefly by hatred of me, issued 
almost daily bulls and bulletins against me. Even 
the poets were drawn into the conspiracy. In de- 
fiance of its own by-laws, the executive committee of 
the Poetry Society of America, which owes its origin 
to me, struck my name from its roll, without con- 
sulting the members and without permitting me to 
appear in my own defence. The protest of Edgar Lee 
Masters, Nathan Haskell Dole, William EUery Leon- 
ard, Conrad Aiken, Witter Bynner, Padraic Colum, 
Shaemas O'Sheel, Jane Burr, B. Russell Herts, Rose 
Pastor Stokes, William Marion Reedy, and Harriet 
Monroe (to name only a few of my champions), were 
unavailing. 

My expulsion from the Authors' League preceded 
the action of the Poetry Society. In both cases those 
heroic stay-at-homes, the Vigilantes, were the gatherers 
of the grapes of wrath. Many one-time friends were 
either paralyzed by fear or pliant tools in the hands 



36 ROOSEVELT 

of the Invisible Government. Now that the peril is 
past, many of the rats are scurrying back. This, how- 
ever, is a tribute, not to their loyalty, but to the sea- 
worthiness of the vessel. My experience in this respect 
differs in no whit from that of other advocates of 
unpopular causes. In the great Ark of human life 
there is room for all creatures. Even rats have their 
place in the universe. We shall not bar them from our 
gang-planks, but we shall know them for what they are. 
Many erstwhile admirers volunteered to rend me 
when the tide seemed to be turning against me. Charles 
Hanson Towne, who had hailed my poetry, Gertrude 
Atherton, who had saluted my prose, vociferously de- 
manded my literary annihilation. I can understand the 
psychology of those who, under the influence of rabid 
racial instincts, lashed into fury by a desire for noto- 
riety, experienced an infantile regression to barbarism. 
It is less easy to forgive Americans of German blood 
who denounced their fellow citizens in order to demon- 
strate their own loyalty. 

A CERTAIN Hermann (with two ns) Hagedorn, 
like myself, the son of a German father, was more 
ro3^alist than Lord Northcliffe in his devotion to 
England. Mr. Hagedorn's most distinguished contribu- 
tion to war literature is his "Portrait of a Rat" which, 
if I may believe certain anonymous communications, 
was intended to immortalize me. 



ROOSEVELT 2n 

PORTRAIT OF A RAT 

A Mule greasy, not quite clean, 
Conceited, snobbish, vain, obscene. 
Like flying poison are his smiles. 
And zvhat he touches, he defiles. 
A Poet, knowing Love and Art, 
He makes a brothel of his heart; 
A builder, gifted to build high, 
He dreams in filth and builds a sty 
To haggle in zvith foolish kings 
Over the price of zvit and wings. 
And zvhen his country calls her men 
With gun and szvord, zvith brush and pen. 
He smirks and quotes the Crucified, 
And jabs his pen-knife in her side. 

Dubious as I am of the soundness of Mr. Hagedorn's 
devotion to Jeffersonian principles, I am certain that it 
is superior to his animal lore. The most pronounced 
characteristic of the amiable rodent in question is its 
eagerness, noted above, to desert a sinking ship. Mr. 
Hagedorn's error may be explicable on the basis of 
Freud's/ discovery that man frequently attributes to 
others the fatal weakness that makes his own heart a 
hell. I may be guilty of many frailties, but it is not 
my habit to abandon my post at the wheel at the ap- 
proach of an iceberg or a torpedo. I steered my maga- 



38 ROOSEVELT 

zine straight through the path of the storm without 
throwing overboard my convictions. Had I been ready 
to recant, my enemies would have built for me bridges 
of gold. I refuse to take a blow lying down, even if 
the odds and the galleries are stacked against me. 
Knowing something of mental Jiu-jitsu, my reply to 
Mr. Hagedorn assumed the form of another contribu- 
tion to zoology. 



PORTRAIT OF A JACKAL 

For love of ease he plays the knave; 
He spits upon his father s grave. 
Yea, for his masters' sport his tongue 
Befouls the race from which he sprung- 
While eager, oily, smooth and kempt, 
He eats the crumbs of their contempt. 
A beggar, lacking love and art. 
He sells his malice on the mart. 
He casts a eunuch's jaundiced eyes 
Upon the Prophet's Paradise, 
And when his country calls for men, 
Gives, all he can, a — fountain pen. 
His braise zvords hide a slacker s heart. 
Informer, sneak, he chose his part, 
A Jackal, ever on the run. 
Save when the odds are ten to one! 



ROOSEVELT 39 

MAY I not add that this is not a portrait of Mr. 
Hagedorn. He is not important enough for me 
to waste a stroke of my brush. I merely intend to de- 
pict a type. Let him whom it fits, put this cap on his 
head. 

Some Americans of German descent, notably a so- 
ciety woman who frequently bursts into print, attempt 
to camouflage their descent, by vicious attacks on Ger- 
man music and German art. They would deny the 
Holy Ghost if He were to approach them in German 
garb or with a Teutonic accent. For such as these, 
the course of duty is plain. They should emulate the 
Samurai who disembowel themselves in order to ex- 
press the intensity of their convictions. Before long 
Fritz Kreisler, who refused to play for an audience that 
dubbed his countrymen "Huns," will make the violin 
sob and sing again. Wagner, returning from exile, 
will smite us with tonal tornadoes. Richard Strauss, 
once more, will flagellate and delight our ears. When 
these things come to pass, the men and women who 
blush for the race of their fathers should seize the occa- 
sion for an emphatic demonstration in the fearless 
Japanese fashion. What an appealing spectacle I What 
headlines! li the whole tribe were to commit hari-kiri 
in the Opera House to the strains of ''Lohengrin" as a 
protest against both German music and their own 
German blood. 



40 ROOSEVELT 

Who shall sound the perplexities of human nature? 
A variety of motives, not all ignoble, actuated the war- 
fare against me. All my antagonists, however, seemed 
to prefer the poison pen to poison gas. There was 
perhaps in the psyche of some of my foes an under- 
current of jealousy, because I occupied no little space 
in the newspapers, and because my literary labors 
had not been unrewarded materially. These motives, 
seizing upon the unconscious, prepared the soil for the 
seed of intrigue. Stimulated by war psychosis, the 
basest incentives donned the garb of patriotism. I do 
not question the sincerity of my foes. I merely analyze 
them with a knowledge gained from the study of 
Freud. 

ONE dear friend whose absence in those days made 
me catch my breath with pain was Hugo Muen- 
sterberg. Intellectually and morally he was a pillar of 
strength. He died a martyr to his convictions. Even his 
powerful constitution was unable to withstand the con- 
stant strain of public assault and private persecution. He 
could give and take a blow, but the betrayal of men 
whose friendship he had treasured wounded him deeply. 
For all his worldily wisdom, he had the heart of a child. 
We who knew him, knew how he suffered. The un- 
speakable outrages committed against him by men who 
were his debtors constitute one of the darkest chapters 
in the academic history of the United States. 



ROOSEVELT 41 

Muensterberg was incapable of understanding base- 
ness and ingratitude, and yet, with truly Christian 
spirit, he forgave those who traduced him. His last 
word to the world was a message of peace and good will 
in the Christmas number of Fatherland of 1916. I 
wonder with what feelings of shame and humiliation 
some of his colleagues at Harvard will remember his 
prophecy: ''After the war men will look one another 
in the face with astonishment. . . . They simply will 
not believe that they could misjudge and maltreat their 
friends so grossly. The subtle power of our mind to 
forget will become mankind's blessing.'* Where others 
preached hatred, Muensterberg preached love. But he 
made no compact with wrong. Sinister influences con- 
spired to silence him, but he was the heir of Fichte and 
Luther. No power on earth could make him afraid. 

A German to the last he, nevertheless, understood 
America better than many of those whose ancestors 
constituted the dubious crew of Britain's younger sons 
in Colonial days. He had become almost a national 
institution. He could always make himself heard when 
the voices of lesser men were drowned in the tumult. 
His books on America are the most profound inter- 
pretation of American life. He was equally skillful in 
interpreting German ideas and ideals to the people of 
the United States. It was perhaps fortunate that he 
escaped the tragedy of seeing his life-work go up in 
the smoke of the world conflagration. The tortures to 



42 ROOSEVELT 

which he was subjected by his colleagues, even before 
our official entrance into the war, the little meannesses 
of which only the professorial mind is capable, defy 
recital. The war would have been his crucifixion. His 
students loved him. But the Faculty was mediaeval in 
its intolerance. Every day drove a new nail into his 
heart. 

The following verses, written immediately after 
Hugo Muensterberg's funeral, cannot express the 
depths of my feeling for him. They are a slight tribute 
to the great man whose genius for philosophy was 
equalled only by his genius for friendship. 

HUGO MUENSTERBERG 
Because he loved his country he lies slain, 

Tracked like a lion, for the hounds to rend. 

New England, gloat above my murdered friend — 
Stopped is the engine of a mighty brain! 
Blood of his heart shall leave too dark a stain 

On Harvard's crimson for the years to blend. 

Smooth-tongued assassins, mumbling as ye bend 
Above his wounds, hush! He may bleed again. 

Marking afar from tender olive tree 

The milk-white dove, on the blood-sickened sea 

He cast the bread zuhereby the soul shall live^ 
In ambush slain, he met a soldier s fate, 
And, like a strong man, fighting knezv not hate. 

He has forgiven. But can zve forgive f 



ROOSEVELT 43 

EVERY snub, every averted head, was a dagger 
thrust to Muensterberg. He found excuses for his 
detractors, but he lacked the resihency to retort with a 
smile. My temperament is more sanguine. Abuse rolls 
off the wings of my Pegasus, like water from the plum- 
age of that lowly fowl, the duck. Moreover, while 
poets can be malicious, they cannot hope to surpass the 
vindictiveness of professors. Ostracism killed Muen- 
sterberg. I did not take my expulsions tragically. I 
shall practice poetry even without a license. I shall fol- 
low the profession of letters even if I am outlawed by 
the Authors' League. I am consoled by the fact that 
our greatest American poets, Edgar Allan Poe and Walt 
Whitman, were not members of the literary coteries of 
their day. I feel sure that the Authors' League would 
seriously object to Walt Whitman. His bust in the 
Hall of Fame is still conspicuous solely by its absence. 
Poe, like Whitman, was hounded all his life. Even 
after his death it took a long struggle before he was 
admitted to the Hall of Fame, although the name of 
Edgar Allan Poe is synonymous with x\merican Poetry. 
The final acceptance of Poe aroused the ire of 
Father Tabb. Burning indignation dictated his death- 
less lines : 

Into your charnel house of fame 
Only the dead shall go, 

But write not there the living name 
Of Edgar Allan Poe. 



44 ROOSEVELT 

If Mr. H. L. Mencken's suggestion that the name of 
the Poe family is derived from the German Pfau, 
should be authenticated, no doubt the Authors' League 
of America would clamor for the immediate expulsion 
of the poet from the chaste seclusion of University 
Heights, on the charge of Pro-Germanism. Perhaps it 
would be joined in this attempt by the executive com- 
mittee of the Poetry Society ! 

However that may be, I dedicate to the Authors' 
League of America and divers literary societies the 
following verses : 

Go, play your Lilliputian game, 
Ye lisping scribes and ladies lyric, 

While brave men die and oceans flame! 
Your victory at best is Pyrrhic; 

The Future knoivs your Scroll of Fame 

But for the expurgated name 
Of George Sylvester Viereck. 

Poe, Whitman and Mark Twain suffered because of 
their rugged Americanism. Mark Twain, in spite of 
his popularity, was not permitted to express what he 
felt most deeply. He reserved his scorn for posthu- 
mous publication and for his correspondence. I am pre- 
pared to be an outcast in such noble company. But, 
like Poe and Whitman, I shall not wait until I am dead 



ROOSEVELT 45 

before I voice my convictions. Even that smug heretic, 
Louis Untermeyer, who combines an erratic critical gift 
with unerring commercial instincts, in a book alleged 
to interpret the New Spirit in American literature, 
shrewdly contents himself with a sneering reference 
to me. I shall survive, even if I am ignored in anthol- 
ogies and if little professors teach their scholars that, 
with the possible exception of Theodore Dreiser's, mine 
is *'the vulgarest voice yet heard in American litera- 
ture."* 



IT may be that the war psychosis will not endure for- 
ever, that even our Rip Van Winkles, as Shaw has 
aptly termed the editors of America, may discover, in 
the course of a decade or two, that the war is over. 
It may be that the true poets of America will drive 
from the temple those who betray the Muse into the 
hands of the moneylenders. It may be that the mon- 
strous grasp that strangles all those who, while render- 
ing homage to Shakespeare and to Swinburne, refuse 
to rise when the band plays "God Save the King," will 
be pried loose by a miracle ! 

Fortunately, a writer in the English tongue (and 
I use more pens than one) is not confined to one con- 
tinent. Life's paradoxes are more startling than Oscar 
Wilde's. And, paradoxically enough, war -racked 

*"On Contemporary Literature," by Stuart P. Sherman. 



46 ROOSEVELT 

Europe is more just in its attitude towards me than my 
American colleagues. Perhaps her intellectuals have a 
higher respect for the art of letters. Perhaps they are 
less swayed by the psychology of the mob. 

Englishmen of letters meet my arguments without 
deeming it necessary to proscribe my verse. When I 
called England "the Serpent of the Sea," the jovial 
heart of Gilbert K. Chesterton shook with Homeric 
laughter. His brother, Cecil, who, unlike our Vigi- 
lantes, sealed his loyalty with his life, challenged me 
to a debate. We met in honest combat, and after it 
was over we shook hands and drank large jugs of ale 
in the tap room of the Prince George. 

Israel Zangwill confesses, with his tongue in his 
cheek, in the ''War for the World," that my Father- 
land was one of the things that kept him pro- Ally; 
but he does not, because of political differences, abuse 
my lyrics. H. G. Wells takes me mildly to task now 
and then, without demanding my blonde Germanic 
head on a silver platter. And from France, France 
bled white by the war, Henri Barbusse sends me a 
message of appreciation! 

There is a certain poetic justice and poetic irony in 
the fact that the countries I attacked so bitterly are 
more generous in judging my point of view than my 
own countrymen. But, hold! I never attacked the 
France of Maeterlinck and Barbusse, of Verlaine and 
Villon. I opposed French Imperialism. I also op- 



ROOSEVELT 47 

posed British Imperialism. German Imperialism ap- 
pealed to me no more than British Imperialism or 
French Imperialism. I was fascinated by the romantic 
figure of William II. I glorified him, but only as the 
symbol of a nation embattled. 

I am not a monarchist. How could I be ? Insurgency 
is bred in my bone. My father shared a German 
prison with Bebel. Liebknecht the elder and Auer were 
daily visitors to our house. My grandfather on my 
mother's side was one of the Germans who came to 
seek freedom under the Stars and Stripes in 1848. The 
blows I struck for Germany were not struck in defence 
of her feudal system. Similarly my shafts at Great 
Britain were never aimed at that ''lyric England," to 
which I paid tribute in my first book of poems. Like- 
wise, I never attacked the England of Chesterton, of 
Wells, of Zangwill, of Havelock Ellis, of Hardy and 
of Shaw. 

THERE is no contemporary whom I admire more 
than the author of "Caesar and Cleopatra." Shaw 
is not only a matchless artist, but he is also, like Roose- 
velt, the mouthpiece of an epoch. I treasure his judg- 
ment, delivered December 1, 1918. He writes: 

You backed the wrong horse in 1914, but you 
have extricated yourself very cleverly; and there 
is plenty of common sense in your present attitude. 



48 ROOSEVELT 

Of course, I did not back the wrong horse. I backed 
the right horse, but the wrong jockey. The German 
people will justify my faith. When Uncle Sam entered 
the race, I backed both the right horse and the right 
jockey. I am proud that Bernard Shaw backed the 
same horse and the same jockey, even against Lloyd 
George. Of course, we must differentiate between 
Woodrow Wilson, the politician, and Woodrow Wil- 
son, the spokesman of the hope of the world. The one 
may fail us. He may compromise. He may hedge. 
The other has planted a star in the firmament of man- 
kind that even he himself cannot tear down from the 
heavens. It is to this star that we have hitched our 
wagon.* 

Theodore Roosevelt, unfortunately, resolutely shut 
his eyes to the new vision. Though a son of the New 
World, he made himself the mouthpiece of Old World 
Imperialism. The very title by which he preferred 
to be addressed was borrowed from the lexicon of 
militarism. George Bernard Shaw, who never set foot 
on American soil, speaks the language of the New 
World's Idealism. The difference between the two is 
the difference between the Hebrew prophets and Jesus. 

Theodore Roosevelt clamored for my expulsion from 
the Authors' League. George Bernard Shaw, patriotic 
Englishman though he be, refused to betray the allegi- 

♦This was written several months before Mr. Wilson's abject 
failure in Paris. 



A MESSAGE FROM GEORGE BERNARD SHAW 



lO ADELPHI TERRACE W.C.2. 



^Y'Xtji. A-X1.-V*' \^6U2^^S^ dH, Ct^ 

o-mX cUi^c urU <.,alrVif t4-i f<^-i^^ 



50 ROOSEVELT 

ance he owes to the profession of letters. His message 
of January 19, 1919, needs no comment: 

If the Authors' League or the Poetry Society or 
any other organization expels a member because of 
his political opinions, it thereby constitutes itself 
a political body and violates whatever literary 
charter it may have. Literature, art and science 
are free of frontiers; and those who exploit them 
politically are traitors to the greatest republic in 
the world : the Republic of Art and Science. 

BUT I have wandered far from the subject of 
my discussion. Enter Theodore Roosevelt, to 
whom I herewith yield his accustomed place, the center 
of the stage. I wish, with no undue humility, that I could 
eliminate the first person singular from my study, but 
these pages owe whatever value they may possess to 
my personal relations with Colonel Roosevelt. The 
psycho-analyst, however objective he may desire to be, 
cannot obliterate himself. He must register his re- 
actions. His soul is his sounding board. He cannot 
illuminate his subject without revealing himself. I have 
tried to be honest both with myself and with others. 
Have I succeeded? God only knows — and Freud. 

GEORGE SYLVESTER VIERECK. 
New York, 1919. 



The Bi-polarity of Theodore Roosevelt 



I. 




SCAR WILDE says somewhere: ** 'Know 
thyself was written over the portals of the 
Old World. *Be thyself* is written over the 
portals of the New." But it is impossible 
for man to know himself or to be himself 
without Psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis did not exist be- 
fore Freud. Freud gave us the key to the soul. He 
teaches us how to know and how to be ourselves. But 
no one who truly knows himself can possibly wish to be 
himself. Above the portal of the Future, Psychoanalysis 
writes the new legend: "Sublimate thyself." 

It may be that those who live by psychoanalysis shall 
perish by psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis robs hate of its 
sting. Perhaps it also deprives love of its halo. By pene- 
trating into the innermost tunnels, the deepest galleries of 
the mind, until it reaches the very root of Self, it may de- 
stroy those emotions and processes which cannot exist save 
in the haze of illusion. Under the scalpel of analysis, 
maybe, art withers and affection dies. It cannot give us the 
love that passes all understanding but it can give the under- 
standing that passes all love. 



54 ROOSEVELT 

Psychoanalysis teaches us that Christ's command to love 
our enemies is no paradox because love and hate are inter- 
changeable terms. "Odi et Amo," Catullus writes to his 
inamorata. The heart, like Janus, has two faces. "Each 
man kills the thing he loves/' says "The Ballad of Reading 
Gaol." "Each man loves the thing he kills," adds the 
shrewd psychoanalyst. Even as a boy I must have had 
some intimation of this great antinomy. "For the mean- 
ing of love, at the last, is hate," exclaims the lover in one 
of my earliest poems. For this duality of affection, this 
contradictory aspect of human relationship, this bi-polarity 
of the soul, this plus and minus of emotion, one of Freud's 
first associates, Bleuler, has coined the name of Ambiva- 
lence. 

Ambivalence is difficult to define. Ambivalent impulses, 
Freud says somewhere in "Totem and Taboo," represent 
simultaneously the wish and the counter-wish. "Am- 
bivalence," he tells us, "is the sway of coexisting contrary 
tendencies." The exaggerated regard, the very tenderness 
which we feel for the objects of our hero worship or our 
affection are accompanied by "a contrary but unconscious 
stream of hostility wherever the typical case of an am- 
bivalent affective attitude is realized. The hostility is then 
submerged by an excessive increase of tenderness which is 
expressed as anxiety and becomes compulsive because 
otherwise it would not suffice for its task of keeping the 
unconscious opposition in a state of repression. . . . Ap- 
plied to the treatment of privileged persons, this theory 



RQOSEVELT 55 

would reveal that their veneration, their very deification, is 
opposed in the unconscious by an intense hostile tendency. 
. . . The taboo of the dead," Freud states somewhere 
else, "originates from the conscious grief and the uncon- 
scious satisfaction at death." 

Shaw says that our grief over the death of a friend or 
a near relative is mingled with a certain feeling of satisfac- 
tion at "being finally done with him." Freud, expressing 
himself more scientifically, contends (in "Reflections on 
War and Death") that "primitive man, grieving at the 
death of a friend, discovered in his pain that he, too, could 
die, an admission against which his whole being must have 
revolted, for every one of these loved ones was part of his 
own beloved self. On the other hand, again, every such 
death was satisfactory to him, for there was also some- 
thing foreign in each of these persons. The law of emo- 
tional ambivalence, which to-day still governs our emo- 
tional relations to those whom we love, certainly obtained 
far more widely in primitive times. The beloved dead had 
nevertheless roused some hostile feelings in primitive man 
because they had been both friends and enemies. . . . 
Except in a few instances, even the tenderest and closest 
love relations," Freud insists, "contain a bit of hostility 
which can arouse an unconscious death-wish." 

Every popular hero is both hated and loved by his fol- 
lowers. Hence the startling somersaults of popular senti- 
ment. The idol, almost overnight, by some subtle and 
sudden accretion to the subconscious forces of opposition, 



56 ROOSEVELT 

becomes an object of universal contumely. Aristides is 
banished because he is just. The lion of to-day is the 
jackal of to-morrow. Judgment can reverse itself with 
the rapidity of lightning, because underneath the adoration 
there is a strong current of hostility and resentment. No 
man has experienced this sudden reversal more frequently 
than Theodore Roosevelt. He alternately enthralled and 
utterly estranged public opinion. His friends of to-day 
were his enemies of to-morrow. The mortal foe became 
the dearest friend. Both friend and foe grieve his loss. 
The world seems empty without him. I am convinced 
that Brother Barnes and Brother Penrose mourn him 
even more profoundly than Brother Perkins and Brother 
Pinchot. Both Taft and Wilson sorrowed at his bier. Not 
merely because they owed to him both the Presidency and 
the most anxious hours of their lives, but because of some- 
thing in the man himself that deeply and powerfully at- 
tracted those whom he most repelled and, ambivalently, re- 
pelled those who loved him best. 

Roosevelt himself is a typical example of bi-polarity. 
He was at once the Progressive and the Reactionary. He 
was Sophist and Rough Rider, Simple Simon and Machi- 
avelli, rolled into one. He was more English than George 
v., more imperialistic than the London Times; yet he 
hated the English from the depth of his heart, he despised 
them, and, to use his own phrase, he patronized them. He 
was at once the faithful Patroclus and the treacherous 
Apache. He loved the Germans and bitterly denounced 



ROOSEVELT 57 

them. His attitude toward Wilhelm II. was equally am- 
bivalent. He admired the Hohenzollern, yet had no kind 
word for him. The two men were strangely alike in some 
respects. For the Kaiser is a similar bundle of contradic- 
tions. Wilhelm, as I explained in my "Confessions of a 
Barbarian" (written ten years ago), is both rationalist and 
mystic, Anglophile and Anglophobe. The Middle Ages 
and the Twentieth Century join in the unstable composition 
of his character. Yet, as I pointed out, the Kaiser is no 
hypocrite. We must simply accept him as two personali- 
ties. Roosevelt, contradictory as this may seem in the light 
of his inconsistencies, was equally incapable of hypocrisy. 
We cannot explain him without the theory of ambivalence. 



The Ambivalent Element in My Relations 
with Roosevelt 



11. 



IV/IY own relations with Theodore Roosevelt were dis- 
tinctly ambivalent. I hated him and I loved him, as 
Catullus did his mistress. His feelings towards me must 
have been equally contradictory. He was both my generous 
friend and my relentless foe. If I attacked him bitterly, the 
arrow intended for him entered my own heart. Praising 
him, I spoke in strident accents, in order to drown the 
secret misgivings, the latent hostility, the hidden dis- 
trust in my bosom. The Progressives who deified him 
were lacerated by the self-same conflict. Suspicion and 
adoration alternately dominated their attitude. To Wall 
Street he was both Devil and Savior. He was the man 
who wrote to My Dear Mr. Harriman: "You and I are 
practical men." He was also the man w^ho exalted "the 
spontaneous judgment of the people" above "the deliberate 
judgment of the bosses." He was the Nemesis of malefac- 
tors of great wealth and he made a present of the Tennes- 
see Coal and Iron Co. to J. Pierpont Morgan ! 

Preaching neutrality in the beginning of the war, even 
justifying the invasion of Belgium, he was the leader of 
those who made it impossible for Mr. Wilson to "keep us 
out of war." Blind to his own inconsistency, he assailed 



62 ROOSEVELT 

Germany for her breach of international ethics; he de- 
nounced Mr. Wilson's "high-handedness" in Central Amer- 
ica: but he never apologized for his own seizure of 
Panama. Like Wilhelm II., he was the most impulsive of 
statesmen, yet, again like Wilhelm 11. , the most calculating 
student of public psychology. He was the most un- 
scrupulous, the most flagrantly inconsistent, the most 
shamelessly selfish of politicians; yet his confession of 
faith made in Carnegie Hall in March, 1912, rings true. 

"The leader, for the time being, whoever he may be, is but 
an instrument, to be used until broken and then to be cast 
aside, and if he is worth his salt he will care no more when 
he is broken than a soldier cares when he is sent where his 
life is forfeit in order that the victory may be won. In the 
long fight for righteousness the watchword for all of us is 
spend and be spent. It is of little matter whether any one 
man fails or succeeds, but the cause shall not fail, for it is 
the cause of mankind. We, here in America, hold in our 
hands the hope of the world, the fate of the coming years; 
and shame and disgrace will be ours if in our eyes the light of 
high resolve is dimmed, if we trail in the dust the golden 
hopes of men." 

His hands shook with emotion as he delivered this 
solemn creed. Dramatically leaf after leaf fluttered from 
his hand. Seated behind him on the platform, I was en- 
thralled. Yet the voice that pronounced these ringing 
sentences had an almost feminine treble. The most mas- 
culine man in America, the prophet of the strenuous life, 



ROOSEVELT 63 

was distinctly feminine in many of his psychic character- 
istics. He was a great and inspired orator; he was also 
a vixen and a scold. 

The first phase in my relations with Theodore Roosevelt 
was one of antagonism. With the sophistry of eighteen I 
detested his championship of the Simple Life. I was made 
furious by his attempt to throttle freedom of speech when 
he started his famous libel suit against the New York 
World at the expense of the Government. It was the first 
mtroduction of the theory of lese majeste into American 
jurisprudence. I wrote a violently vindictive sonnet 
against him, so violent that the New York World refused 
to print it. It appeared, I believe, in The Call. 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

Those who bore Rome's imperial crown, they say, 
Felt a strange sickness work in brain and blood, 
Till ever spreading like some monstrous bud 

Their arrogance umbraged all the world. Yet they 

Were ground to dust and dynasts swept away, 
Whose grander madness rocked on ages stood, 
By just men's anger rising like the Flood, 

O boastful Tyrant for a Little Day! 

Thou art not strong backward to swing the gate 
Of speech made free through Milton's high renown! 

Thine might have been the enviable fate 

Of one whose foot trod Mammon's altar down: 
Heed, lest— a braggart in a prophet's gown— 

The night engulf thee with a nation's hate! 



64 ROOSEVELT 

My dislike for Roosevelt (justified in this case — but justice 
never regulates human relations!) was perfectly natural. 
It arose, as I explained to him later, from a spirit of filial 
opposition, presumably implanted in my soul (to render 
unto Freud that v^hich is Freud's) by some obscure mani- 
festation of the Oedipus complex. 

My father was one of Roosevelt's staunchest supporters. 
He is the historian of Roosevelt's school year in Germany; 
he made a pilgrimage to the house of the good Dr. Mink- 
witz in Dresden, where young Theodore spent many happy 
days. He also collected reverently from the maiden daugh- 
ters of the Teuton educator characteristic anecdotes of the 
engaging lad. My father is the possessor of a long letter 
from Theodore Roosevelt, written during his gubernatorial 
campaign, in which he sings the praises of his German 
American friends, and proudly calls attention to his Ger- 
man descent. This letter was resuscitated many times by 
Theodore Roosevelt. It did duty in every campaign. 



Roosevelt Intrigues My Imagination 



III. 

TN 1909 Roosevelt intrigued my imagination. I find 
^ several references to him in the "Confessions of a 
Barbarian." In Chapter III (The State Idea), I said: 

We have compared ourselves to the Romans. I, myself, have 
endorsed that comparison. But I am afraid we flatter our- 
selves. We are undeniably resourceful and mighty. Our do- 
minion is wider than Rome's. We can match the Appian Way. 
We even have a sort of Caesar. That it what the French call 
him, and not without justice. Caesar was Rome. America, 
through Europe's glasses, is Roosevelt. We, recognizing the 
real master in his dual disguise, bow to Rockefeller and Mor- 
gan. On the Continent Rockefeller's memoirs met with scant 
success. Roosevelt's books went. 

Like Caesar, Roosevelt is a historian. The future will speak 
of both as popular leaders. Greek students will perhaps em- 
ploy the Greek equivalent of the term. Perhaps every states- 
man must be a demagogue and every prophet a charlatan. 
Theodore, like the great Julius, is intensely theatrical, and in- 
tensely—convulsively—dynamic. Both men believed in their 
star. Both men, after startling domestic exploits, submerged 
themselves temporarily in the African jungle. Roosevelt, like 
Caesar, has hunted big game. But not so big as Caesar's. He 
has founded no kingdom by the Nile; nor followed the river 
to its mystical sources. [This was written before his expedi- 
tion to the "River of Doubt."] And there was no Cleopatra. 
That would take more imagination than Mr. Roosevelt pos- 
sesses. He has slain lions, instead, and penned laborious arti- x 
cles at a dollar a word, for the Outlook and Scribner's. 



68 ROOSEVELT 

And there was no Cleopatra. The absence of the Cleo- 
patra complex constituted my chief grievance against 
Roosevelt. I was a poet of passion. A great man without 
a romance to his credit seemed to me strangely inhuman. 
My youth clamored for sex. In Roosevelt, no doubt, to 
use the Freudian dialect, the sex impulse was either re- 
pressed or sublimated. 

David Jayne Hill, then Ambassador of the United States 
in Berlin, presented a copy of the "Confessions of a Bar- 
barian" to His Majesty the Emperor. He also gave a copy 
to Theodore Roosevelt, together with a letter from me. 
I received a courteous reply from the Colonel in which he 
expressed the desire to meet me on his return to this coun- 
try. I think it was at the Outlook office that I first met 
Theodore Roosevelt. I am sorry that I made no record 
of the occasion. Unlike Frank Harris, I was not born 
with a note-book. When I meet the great, I sometimes 
forget my fountain pen. This could never happen to 
Harris. George Moore goes Harris one better. He carries 
his typewriter or his memorandum pad into his lady's bed- 
room! Mr. Roosevelt was altogether fascinating. He 
told me that he was an admirer of my verse. (O praises 
sweeter than manna!) His daughter Alice had given him 
a copy of "Nineveh." The poem deeply impressed him. 
"I was a pretty busy man in the White House," he said, 
"but I have not forgotten that poem." (I was in seventh 
heaven.) "You make New York out to be rather wicked," 
he remarked with a smile, "but you are right, it is wicked." 



ROOSEVELT 69 

"You," I had the presence of mind to answer, "as a former 
police commissioner, are in a position to know." Never- 
theless, I gasped. For while I employed the language of 
Isaiah in the poem, my intent was purely artistic. Moral 
indignation is not part of my mental equipment. The 
reproach I heaped upon the city was a token of my affec- 
tion (and affectation) ! To-day I would characterize my 
attitude as "ambivalent." 

NINEVEH 
I. 

r\ NINEVEH, thy realm is set 
^^ Upon a base of rock and steel, 
From where the under-rivers fret 
High up to where the planets reel. 

Clad in a blazing coat of mail, 

Above the gables of the town 
Huge dragons with a monstrous trail * 

Have pillared pathways up and down. 

And in the bowels of the deep. 
Where no man sees the gladdening sun, 

All night without the balm of sleep 
The human tide rolls on and on. 



T^HE Hudson's mighty waters lave 
^ In stern caress thy granite shore, 
And to thy port the salt sea wave 
Brings oil and wine and precious ore. 

Yet if the ocean in its might 

Should rise, confounding stream and bay, 
The stain of one delirious night 

Not all the tides can wash away ! 



70 ROOSEVELT 

'X'HICK pours the smoke of thousand fires, 
^ Life throbs and beats relentlessly— 
But lo, above the stately spires 
Two lemans : Death and Leprosy. 

What fruit shall spring from such embrace? 

Ah, even thou vi^ould'st quake to hear ! 
He bends to kiss her loathsome face, 

She laughs — and whispers in his ear. 

Sit not too proudly on thy throne, 
Think on thy sisters, them that fell ; 

Not all the hosts of Babylon 
Could save her from the jaws of hell. 



IL 

T^HROUGH the long alleys of the park 
''' On noiseless wheels and delicate springs, 
Glide painted women, fair and dark, 
Bedecked with silks and jewelled things. 

In peacock splendor goes the rout, 

With shrill, loud laughter of the mad- 
Red lips to suck thy life-blood out. 
And eyes too weary to be sad ! 

Their feet go down to shameful death, 
They flaunt the livery of their wrong. 

Their beauty is of Ashtoreth, 
Her strength it is that makes them strong. 



DEHOLD thy virgin daughters, how 
■'-' They know the smile a wanton wears; 
And oh ! on many a boyish brow 
The blood-red brand of murder flares. 



ROOSEVELT 71 

QEE, through the crowded streets they fly, 
^ Like doves before the gathering storm. 
They cannot rest, for ceaselessly 
In every heart there dwells a worm. 

They sing in mimic joy, and crown 

Their temples to the flutes of sin ; 
But no sweet noise shall ever drown 

The whisper of the worm within. 



TTHEY revel in the gilded line 
*• Of lamplit halls to charm the night, 
But think you that the crimson wine 
Can veil the horror from their sight? 

Ah, no — their staring eyes are led 
To where it lurks with hideous leer; 

Therefore the women flush so red, 
And all the men are white with fear. 



A S in a mansion vowed to lust, 
'**■ Where wantons with their guests make free, 
'Tis thus thou humblest in the dust 
Thy queenly body, Nineveh! 

Thy course is downward ; 'tis the road 

To sins that, even where disgrace 
And shameful pleasure walk abroad. 

Dare not unmask their shrouded face ! 

Surely at last shall come the day 

When these that dance so merrily 
Shall watch with terrible faces gray 

Thy doom draw near, O Nineveh ! 



72 ROOSEVELT 

III. 

T TOO, the fatal harvest gained 
■''' Of them that sow with seed of fire 
In passion's garden — I have drained 
The goblet of thy sick desire. 

I from thy love had bitter bliss, 
And ever in my memory stir 

The after-savors of thy kiss — 
The taste of aloes and of myrrh. 

And yet I love thee, love unblessed 
The poison of thy wanton's art ; 

Though thou be sister to the Pest, 
In thy great hands I lay my heart ! 

And when thy body, Titan-strong, 
Writhes on its giant couch of sin. 

Yea, though upon the trembling throng 
The very vault of Heaven fall in ; 

And, though the palace of thy feasts 
Sink crumbling in a fiery sea — 

I, like the last of Baal's priests, 
Will share thy doom, O Nineveh ! 



Roosevelt the Lovable 



IV. 

IN those days my father published Der Deutsche Vor- 
kaempfer {The German Pioneer), a monthly devoted 
to keeping alive a knowledge of German in the United 
States. Nowadays it would be regarded as "German 
Propaganda." Ponce de Leon sought the fountain of 
youth in the Western hemisphere. My father, reversing 
the Spaniard's steps, turned to the medicinal waters of 
Germany for his rejuvenation. I decided to continue the 
Vorkaempfer under another name. It was to be published 
as a German edition of Current Literature, and was to be 
the intellectual organ of the "culture exchange so ardently 
fostered by the German Emperor and Mr. Roosevelt." 
Current Literature insisted upon certain financial guaran- 
tees. I turned for aid to Count Bernstorff and Theodore 
Roosevelt. Mr. Roosevelt generously promised to say a 
good word for me with a number of wealthy German 
Americans, if I would provide the occasion. 

I arranged a luncheon at the National Arts Club, inviting 
Professor Hugo Muensterberg ; the German Consul-Gen- 
eral; and a number of distinguished German Americans. 
Roosevelt appeared, ruddy and blustering. He was in 
splendid form. He shook everyone by the hand. He 
dominated every one. He held the attention of all from 
beginning to end, shouting across the table, if necessary, 



l(y ROOSEVELT 

to bring back those who strayed from the fold. The room 
resounded with his vitaHty. The walls trembled with his 
indiscretions. He did not take a cocktail, but he drank 
several glasses of champagne. Liquor, however, did not 
influence him. He was in no need of alcoholic stimulants. 
He was always drunk with his eloquence, drunk with 
exuberance, drunk with the wine of God. I never saw 
a man who could eat so quickly and talk so quickly at the 
same time. Yet he was careful of his health. I noticed 
that he took saccharine in place of sugar. And he talked 
as no man ever talked before. Empires, kingdoms, world 
policies, state secrets he whirled at his audience and 
caught them up again with the dexterity of a juggler. 

To me there was something Napoleonic in Roosevelt's 
colossal activity. I told him so. He only half relished the 
compliment. The moralist in him condemned the Cor- 
sican. Perhaps the egotist in him could not forgive him 
his fame. Mr. Roosevelt told us his reason for sending 
the fleet around the world, an action which, he averred, 
had prevented war with Japan. He spoke of his trip to 
the continent, of kings and "little kings." Here the Con- 
sul-General audibly shuddered. "But," he continued, "of 
all the monarchs I have met, the Kaiser is the only one 
who could have carried his own ward if he were an Amer- 
ican politician." He pounded the table with his fists. "Of 
all the European royalties," he exclaimed, "the Kaiser is 
the only one whom, morally and intellectually, I would care 
to meet as an equal." 



ROOSEVELT 77 

Mr. Roosevelt's references to England (in the pres- 
ence of a German Consul-General) were little short of 
amazing. "When I became President," he said (each 
word remains seared in my brain), "I so detested the 
English that I had to make a vow to myself not to permit 
my prejudice to interfere with my duties." He described 
his more recent experiences in England, recalling gleefully 
the advice he had given John Bull on the government of 
his colonies. "Most Americans," he said (I am willing to 
vouch for this under oath, if needs be), "either detest the 
English or fawn upon them. I gave them a new experi- 
ence. I patronized them." And he laughed the hearty 
laugh of a boy. "I am proud," Mr. Roosevelt continued, 
"that there is not in my veins a drop of English blood." 
Even in those days, when I looked upon the Colonel 
through the glasses of my admiration, this remark seemed 
to be lacking in taste. I do not know if it even coincides 
with the facts. 

The blood of many races surged through that ruddy 
form of his. Psychologically he was a Viking. So fast 
the swift blood coursed that, unwittingly, it destroyed the 
channels through which it traveled. Roosevelt's blood 
pressure, even in his best years, was phenomenally high. 
It was a clot of blood in the brain that killed him. I some- 
times wonder if it was perchance a clot of that German 
blood of which he so often boasted, that, rebelling against 
the master's denunciation of his own antecedents, finally 
burst the vessel assunder. But under the Viking strain. 



78 ROOSEVELT 

another element, far more elusive, entered into his com- 
position. One of his biographers informs me that the 
Roosevelt family is of Dutch- Jewish descent. If this ac- _ 
cords with the truth, the East Side politicians who ex- 
horted the children of New York's Ghetto to vote for 
"Theodore Rosenfeld" stumbled unawares upon a discov- 
ery that, to the world at large, is nothing short of amazing. 
Perhaps the Oriental admixture accounts for his subtler 
moods and for the astonishing vivacity of his mind ! 

I cannot recall all he told us, but his remarks on England 
are engraved in my memory. They altered my political 
"orientation." Until that time, I was a great admirer of 
the English. The very first sonnet in the "Nineveh" col- 
lection is a salutation to England. Mr. Roosevelt's words 
profoundly affected my attitude on Anglo-American rela- 
tions. Here was a man I worshipped, a former President 
of the United States, frankly avowing his anti-British bias ! 
From that day on antipathy against Great Britain seemed 
to me the quintessence of Americanism. How could I 
know that underneath Roosevelt's hatred of Great Britain 
there slumbered, ambivalently, the heart of an Englishman, 
who was willing to concede without question to Great 
Britain the mastery of the seas? 

Of the German language Mr. Roosevelt spoke in glow- 
ing terms. I do not remember his words, for he said 
exactly what I expected. He wound up with an earnest 
appeal on my behalf. Unfortunately, so much time had 
been consumed by him in various recitals that my friends 



ROOSEVELT 79 

hastened back to their offices without pledging support to 
my undertaking. The financial harvest of the luncheon 
was scant. However, eventually $10,000 was collected. 
Hardly anyone, with the exception of myself, was able to 
say a word at the luncheon. Roosevelt absolutely monopo- 
lized the conversation. Men gladly listened to him because 
there could be no question of his fascination. When he 
said good-bye to us, he thanked us for having had "such 
an instructive time." I wonder if his humor was entirely 
unconscious ? Perhaps when God created him, he omitted 
the funny-bone. Three or four times during Mr. Roose- 
velt's discourse, I gently attempted to interrupt him in 
order to guide his thoughts into channels conducive to my 
plans. But each time, his hand, like the huge paw of a 
lion, descended upon my shoulder, and pushed me back 
into my seat. And each time I was thrilled anew. 

Roosevelt compelled attention by sheer physical mag- 
netism. William Bayard Hale, in his brilliant study of 
Theodore Roosevelt, entitled, *'A Week in the White 
House," dwells on this aspect of his personality. ''Roose- 
velt," Dr. Hale insists, "is first of all a physical marvel. 
He radiates energy as the sun radiates light and heat, and 
he does it apparently without losing a particle of his own 
energy. It is not merely remarkable, it is a simple miracle 
that he can exhibit, for one day, the power which emanates 
from him like energy from a dynamo. Once we all be- 
lieved in a beautiful law known as that of the conserva- 
tion of energy. No force, so went the dream, was lost. It 



80 ROOSEVELT 

was only transformed; it underwent metamorphosis; the 
sum of energy in the universe was always the same. It 
was the discovery of radium and the radioactive substances 
which wrought the discomfiture of that law. It is Mr. 
Roosevelt who discredits it entirely. He never knows that 
virtue has gone out of him. He radiates from morning 
until night, and he is nevertheless always radiant." This 
was written in 1908. To-day we know that the cosmic law 
is inexorable. The dusk of doom envelops even the gods. 
Even the virtue of radium exhausts itself in the end. 
However in 1911 Roosevelt was still all-radiant! It seemed 
sacrilege to think that it could ever be otherwise ! 

When we expressed surprise at his candor, he told us 
his confidence had never been violated. He always talked 
frankly, exuberantly, to the newspaper men who were con- 
stantly swarming around him, yet he had never reason to 
regret this policy. Indiscretion was the better part of his 
popularity. If any man quoted him, contrary to the implied 
gentlemen's agreement, he calmly consigned the culprit to 
the Ananias Club. Roosevelt thus had the privilege of al- 
ways being himself. He availed himself of it by being 
consistently inconsistent. Now that Mr. Roosevelt's death 
has released newspaper men from the tacit pledge of 
secrecy, startling revelations may be expected. 

In the first number of Rundschau Zweier Welten ap- 
pears the following carefully-worded letter from Theodore 
Roosevelt : 




© International News Service. 

BEFORE ARMAGEDDON 

Note the Rundschau Zzvcicr Wcltcn on Mr. Roosevelt's desk. 



ROOSEVELT 81 

THE OUTLOOK, 
287 Fourth Avenue, 

New York. 
Office of 
Theodore Roosevelt. 

December 23d, 1910. 
My Dear Mr. Viereck : — I am much pleased to learn that you 
are to help start an international magazine, intended to por- 
tray and develop both German and American culture. I have, 
as you know, heartily believed in the culture exchange move- 
ment as being of peculiar importance to both countries. I feel 
that in America there is especial need of keeping alive a thor- 
ough knowledge of German ; and I believe that your magazine 
will not only help in this direction, but will help in the converse 
way, by interpreting American events to your readers beyond 
the ocean. 

Wishing you good luck, I am, 

Sincerely yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 
Mr. George Sylvester Viereck, 

Current Literature Publishing Co., 

New York City. 

Before this I received the following personal note : 

THE OUTLOOK, 
287 Fourth Avenue, 
New York. 
Editorial Rooms. 

November 22d, 1910. 

My Dear Mr. Viereck : — I appreciate your letter, and I want 
now to take the opportunity of saying how greatly I enjoyed 
the lunch you were so kind as to give me. I do hope that your 
magazine project will succeed. 

Faithfully yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 
Mr. George Sylvester Viereck, 

The German Current Literature, 
134 West 29th Street, 
New York City. 



•THERE IS ESPECIAL NEED OF KEEPING ALIVE 
A THOROUGH KNOWLEDGE OF GERMAN" 



T^? Outlook 



287 Fourth Avenue 

New York 
Office of 
Theodore Roosevelt 

December 23rd, 1910, 

My dear Mr. Vlereck; 

I am muoh pleased to learn that you ia>e 
to nelp start an International magazine. Intended to portray 
and develop both German and American culture. I have, as 
you know, neartily believed In the culture exchange move- 
ment as Deing of peculiar Importance to both countries. I 
feel that In America there Is especial need of keeping alive 
a thorough knowledge of German; and I believe that your 
magazine will not only nelp In tnls direction, but will nelp 
In the converse way, by Interpreting American events to your 
readers beyond the ocean 

Wishing you good luck, I am. 

Sincerely yours 



Ji'-^^jz.^crr^CcW /Urr^r^t^-^'*^-- 



Mr George Sylvester VlerecK, 

Current Literature Publlsnlng Co 
New York City. 



ROOSEVELT 83 

No doubt Mr. Roosevelt would have liked to expunge 
these messages from the record, together with his one-time 
approval of the neutrality of President Wilson and the 
German invasion of Belgium. I speak without bitterness, 
for I cannot forget Mr. Roosevelt's kindness to me. In 
1912 the Rundschau Zweier Welt en ardently championed 
the cause of Theodore Roosevelt (at the expense of its 
circulation). Over my desk at this moment hangs a 
picture of Theodore Roosevelt, holding in his hands a 
copy of the Rundschau. 

Then came the stirring days of Progressivism. 



Onward, Christian Soldiers 



V 

|\/[ Y enthusiasm for Roosevelt rose to a high pitch 
in Chicago. We Progressives had great difficulty 
in obtaining tickets for the Republican Convention. I 
facetiously wrote to Victor Rosewater, doughty fighter and 
gentleman, albeit the man whose gavel crushed the hopes 
of Theodore Roosevelt: "Shall it be said to the shame of 
the Republican Party that the greatest American poet 
vainly knocked for entrance at its gate ?" I frankly added 
that I was not on his side, but "on the side of the angels." 
Victor replied: "If you come out to Chicago, it will not be 
said that the 'greatest American poet' will be refused ad- 
mission so long as his admirer, and friend, is chairman 
of the National Committee." At the Convention, I shouted 
myself hoarse for Roosevelt day after day. Then the great 
moment came. Roosevelt broke with his Party. "Gentle- 
men," announced someone — I think it was Hadley, of Mis- 
souri — "a message from Colonel Theodore Roosevelt." 
The message was heard in silence. The rest is history. 

At the Progressive Convention that nominated him for 
the Presidency Roosevelt made his great speech: "We 
stand at Armageddon and battle for the Lord." The sen- 
tence (as he freely admits in a subsequent letter to me) 
was an unconscious reminiscence of an ode by Brownell. 
I was carried away by the fine hysteria of those brave 
days. I discovered my "Social Conscience." "The Hymn 
of Armageddon embodies this mood: 



88 ROOSEVELT 



THE HYMN OF ARMAGEDDON 

''And I stood upon the sands of the sea, and I saw a beast 
rise up out of the sea, having seven heads. . . . And he gath- 
ered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue 
Armageddon. , . . And the great city was divided into three 
parts." — The Apocalypse. 

A POCALYPTIC thunders roll out of the crimson East: 

The Day of Judgment is at hand, and we shall slay the Beast. 
What are the seven heads of him, the Beast that shall be slain? 
Sullivan, Taggart, Lorimer, Barnes, Penrose, Murphy, Crane. 
Into what cities leads his trail in venom steeped, and gore? 
Ask Frisco, ask Chicago, mark New York and Baltimore. 
Where shall we wage the battle, for whom unsheath the sword? 
We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord! 

Though hell spit forth its snarling host we shall not flinch nor 

quail, 
For in the last great skirmish God's own truth must prevail. 
Have they not seen the writing that flames upon the wall, 
Of how their house is built on sand, and how their pride must fall? 
The cough of little lads that sweat where never sun sheds light, 
The sob of starving children and their mothers in the night, 
These, and the wrong of ages, we carry as a sword. 
Who stand at Armageddon and who battle for the Lord! 

God's soldiers from the West are we, from North, and East and 

South, 
The seed of them who flung the tea into the harbor's mouth. 
And those who fought where Grant fought and those who fought 

with Lee, 
And those who under alien stars first dreamed of liberty. 



ON ELECTION DAY 



T^? Outlook 

287 Fourth Avenue 
New "York 

Theodore"'Ro°osevelt November 4th 1912. 



Dear Viereck: 

Let me thank you no* for all you have done for itie , Many 
a leader must fall at ^rma;?eddon before the long fight is 
won. 

Faithfully yours. 



90 ROOSEVELT 

Not those of little faith whose speech is soft, whose ways are dark, 
Nor those upon whose forehead the Beast has set his mark, 
Out of the Hand of Justice we snatch her faltering sword, 
IVe stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord! 

The sternest militant of God whose trumpet in the fray 

Has cleft the city into three shall lead us on this day. 

The holy strength that David had is his, the faith that saves, 

For he shall free the toilers as Abe Lincoln freed the slaves. 

And he shall rouse the lukewarm and those whose eyes are dim. 

The hope of twenty centuries has found a voice in him. 

Because the Beast shall froth with wrath and perish by his sword, 

He leads at Armageddon the legions of the Lord! 

For he shall move the mountains that groan with ancient sham, 
And mete with equal measure to the lion and the lamb, 
And he shall wipe away the tears that burn on woman's cheek. 
For in the nation's council hence the mothers, too, shall speak. 
Through him the rose of peace shall blow from the red rose of 

strife, 
America shall write his name into the Book of Life. 
And where at Armageddon we battle with the sword 
Shall rise the mystic commonwealth, the City of the Lord! 

I made stump speeches for Roosevelt. I recited my 
poem. I was a delegate to the Progressive State Conven- 
tion that nominated Oscar S. Straus. I attempted to corral 
the German American vote for T. R. Roosevelt knew 
of these activities. A letter in his own handwriting ad- 
dressed to "Dear Oscar" (Oscar S. Straus) bears witness 
to this fact. Then tragedy stalked in Milwaukee. Roose- 
velt was shot by a crank. The world grew black for me. 



FROM THE SICK BED 

After the attempted assassination in Milwaukee. 



T^? Outlook 

287 Fourth Avenue 

New Itbrk 

Ti, ^°^^*^^°' ,, February 29th, 1912, 

Theodore Roosevelt ' ' 



DearMr. Vlereck: 

I have only time to send tnis one line 
of thanka and appreciation for all your kindness, 
Faithfully yours , 



y 




Mr. George Sylvester Vlereck, 
134 West 29th Street, 
Kew York City. 



92 ROOSEVELT 

I sent him a telegram placing the responsibility for the deed 
upon the broad shoulders of Taft. I trembled as his life 
hung in the balance. I learned by heart the noble speech 
he made with a bullet in his body. Theatrical — perhaps, 
but surely tremendous ! On his sick bed Mr. Roosevelt 
did not forget me. He sent me the following letter dated 
February 29th : 

Dear Mr. Viereck : — I have only time to send this one line 
of thanks and appreciation for all your kindness. 

Faithfully yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 

The campaign drew near the end. I believed in a miracle 
— the election of Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt evidently 
did not share this belief. On Election Day, before the 
result of the election was known, he found the time to 
send me this message: 

Dear Viereck : — Let me thank you now for all you have 

done for me. Many a leader must fall at Armageddon before 

the long fight is won. 

Faithfully yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 



Roosevelt the Man of Letters 



VI. 

A FTER the election Roosevelt's mind turned from 
politics to literature and adventure. I was still a 
strong Roosevelt man. The Colonel's pronounced an- 
tipathy against Wilson poisoned my own pen. It influenced 
my editorials in The International and the early policy of 
The Fatherland. Between 1912 and 1914, my own inter- 
ests were predominantly literary. I transferred my ad- 
miration from Roosevelt the leader to Roosevelt the man 
of letters. I admired the rhythmic swing of his sentences. 
I realized that America had lost a poet in Theodore Roose- 
velt, His dynamics lacked only verse to make him greater 
than Whitman. He would have made literature if he had 
not made history. I reviewed his book, "History as Litera- 
ture," in The International shortly before my trip to 
Europe in 1914. Before me lies a copy of the book with 
this inscription: **To George Sylvester Viereck with all 
good wishes from Theodore Roosevelt." Appended to the 
book is a letter, dated May 27th, from Roosevelt's secre- 
tary, Mr. Frank Harper. He says : 

Mr. Roosevelt has just read your review of his essays which 
appeared in a recent number o£ The International. He asked 
me to say that there is no review of any of his works which 
he has seen recently which has given him so much pleasure 
as this one. It is one of the best things he has ever seen, and 
shows a keen appreciation of what Mr. Roosevelt tried to 
convey. 



96 ROOSEVELT 

Whatever we may have said about each other in the last 
few years, there was a time when appreciation was mutual. 

In spite of his robust mentality, Roosevelt was not (am- 
bivalently) lacking in subtlety. If he had been only an ex- 
ponent of the strenuous, he would not have remembered 
"Nineveh" with pleasure. He would have been distressed 
by my second collection of verse, "The Candle and the 
Flame," to which my friends fondly refer as "The Scandal 
and the Shame." (I think the phrase was invented by the 
heroic Charles Hanson Towne.) I mislaid Mr. Roosevelt's 
letter of acknowledgment. It contained praise. It also 
conveyed criticism. One phrase especially clings to my 
memory. "I liked everything in the book" (I quote from 
my recollection) "except the reference to Wilde. Perhaps 
this is due to some atavistic Puritanism in me. . . ." Ata- 
vistic Puritanism! What a delightful phrase! The man 
who can speak of his own Puritanism as atavistic is no 
longer a Puritan in his brain. 



The Storm Clouds Gather 



VII. 

T DO not remember the date of my first visit to Oyster 
Bay. Mr. Roosevelt had invited my parents and me to 
be his guests at luncheon. He received us with charming 
rustic simplicity. His main living-room, littered with lion 
skins and books, was a little museum filled with Roosevelt 
trophies. He showed us the books on German art pre- 
sented to him by the Kaiser. (He did not value Wilhelm's 
judgment as an art critic.) Of course, he quoted the 
Nibelungenlied. He always quoted the Nibelungenlied. 
He also showed us the famous photograph under which 
the Kaiser had written, "From the Commander-in-Chief 
of the German Army to the Colonel of the Rough Riders." 
I may not remember the wording exactly, but it was some- 
thing to that effect. He told us of vain attempts made by 
the German Foreign Office to recapture a number of 
Imperial snapshots from him. 

Mrs. Loeb, the wife of his former private secretary, 
presided over the luncheon in the absence of Mrs. Roose- 
velt. The mind is curiously constituted. Often it cannot 
recall matters of real importance while a trivial incident 
impresses us vividly. I remember that at lunch we had a 
dreadful pink lemonade, a sort of mint julep with the julep 
omitted. One of Mr. Roosevelt's guests on this occasion 
WB3 Governor Whitman, who had made the journey to 



100 ROOSEVELT 

Sagamore Hill in order to obtain the Colonel's indorse- 
ment. His pilgrimage proved in vain. Roosevelt had lost 
the sure political instinct of his former years. He never, 
since his own defeat, indorsed a winning candidate. Every 
candidate bearing his stamp seemed to be foreordained to 
defeat. 

In the summer of 1914, I went to Europe. Before my 
return the war clouds began to gather. I came back by 
way of Boston in order to spend a few days with Pro- 
fessor Muensterberg. In the three days I stayed under his 
roof, history moved with Seven League Boots. Ultimatum 
was succeeded by ultimatum. Ten days after the German 
mobilization the first copy of The Fatherland appeared on 
the streets of New York. I asked Mr. Roosevelt for a 
contribution to the first number. He replied as follows: 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

30 E. 42d Street, 

New York City. 

August 8, 1914. 

Dear Viereck: — I am very glad to hear from you and to 

know what your plans are. But, of course, as you say, my 

desire is at present to avoid in any way saying anything that 

would tend to exaggerate and inflame the war spirit on either 

side and to be impartial ; I simply do not know the facts. It is 

a melancholy thing to see such a war. 

Faithfully yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 
George Sylvester Viereck, Esq., 
Editor, The International, 
New York, N. Y. 



ROOSEVELT 101 

In those days, Mr. Roosevelt was neutral. Yet neutrality 
was contrary to his nature. If he had not been head over 
heels pro- Ally, he would have been violently pro-German. 
He could not see a fight without "throwing his hat in the 
ring." 



With Dr. Dernburg in Oyster Bay 



VIII. 

'y HE waves of public excitement rose almost as high in 
America as in Europe. The German point of view 
was without an accredited spokesman until the arrival of 
Dr. Dernburg. Little recking of the gigantic forces that 
were unleashed against them, the pro-Germans attempted 
to win America to their point of view by argumentation. 
This was, of course, entirely mistaken. Reason never won 
heart of fair lady or public opinion. Remembering Roose- 
velt's dislike for England, I expected him to champion the 
German cause. At first I was chagrined by his silence. 
His growing Pro-Ally proclivity stabbed me to the heart. 
Hearing Dernburg week after week, I did not see how 
anyone could resist his relentless logic. His powerful per- 
sonality was no less dynamic than Roosevelt's, although 
touched perhaps more obviously by the old world's sophisti- 
cation. A meeting of the two intellects, it seemed to me, 
would be an epic occasion. The temptation was irresistible. 
I arranged for an interview between the two men. Mr. 
Roosevelt graciously invited us to Sagamore Hill. I shall 
never forget our trip to Oyster Bay. The car bore us 
swiftly, but no more swiftly than speech flowed from the 
lips of Dernburg. He possessed a wonderful gift of mar- 
shalling facts and figures convincingly. His mind, travel- 
ing like a searchlight, illuminated in rapid succession the 
most diverse and abstruse economical problems. 



106 ROOSEVELT 

Roosevelt received us at the door. He was a courteous 
host. He at once brought up a book which Dr. Dernburg 
had presented to him years ago in Berlin. Dr. Dernburg 
had forgotten the incident. He was deeply touched by Mr. 
Roosevelt's remembrance. Mr. Roosevelt's memory was 
not the least of his assets. In politics a good memory is 
more important than a good cause. The man in the street 
is not impressed by reason, but he is profoundly affected 
if some great man remembers that he once shook hands 
with him on a railway station. Mr. Roosevelt was con- 
scious of this power. He used it to the utmost. Flattery 
is the most potent weapon of rulers of men, irrespec- 
tive of sex: it serves equally the statesman and the 
hetaera. 

Mr. Roosevelt's memory was evidently untouched by 
his South American fever. But I was shocked by the 
change in the man. There was no question of his 
physical deterioration. The malady that eventually 
killed him was already devouring his strength. The 
Rough Rider was only a shell of his former self. He 
himself sadly, quizzically, referred to his gout. . . . 
As he turned his tortured face upon me my only 
sensation was pity. At dinner we discussed many things. 
We reserved Belgium for the dessert. Woman Suffrage 
bobbed up during the conversation. Roosevelt did not 
seem over-enthusiastic on the subject. He believed that 
it made no real difference, because there is no fundamental 
difference between women and men. Feminine suffrage 



ROOSEVELT 107 

merely increases the number of voters. After dinner came 
the trial of strength. I am sorry that I was the only wit- 
ness of the intellectual wrestling match between Theodore 
Roosevelt and Bernhard Dernburg in the Trophy Room 
at Sagamore Hill. 

Both men were powerfully equipped mentally. Roose- 
velt's physical suffering had not impaired his power of 
dialectics. Both were, as all great men must necessarily be, 
colossal egotists. Egotism, in the parlance of Dr. Tannen- 
baum, one of the keenest interpreters of Freud, is the de- 
fensive measure erected by genius against its environment. 
Without this protective armor, the man of genius would 
be not the captain of his soul but the helpless victim of 
mediocrity and of circumstance. Roosevelt spoke. He 
spoke cuttingly. His voice, although high-pitched, seemed 
to fill the room. He stated the case against Germany with 
eloquence and precision. Once Dr. Dernburg wished to 
interpose an objection. Down came that arm as it did on 
me at my luncheon. Mr. Roosevelt brooked no interrup- 
tion. At last he paused. Availing himself of the oppor- 
tunity. Dr. Dernburg now pleaded his cause. He seemed 
to have the better of the argument logically. He quoted 
resolutions passed by the United States Senate that were 
unknown even to Mr. Roosevelt. His facts, like so many 
tin soldiers, marched before us in orderly procession. 
Where Roosevelt had been brutal at times, Dernburg was 
subtle. His very subtlety militated against him. At one 
time, Roosevelt wished to interrupt him. This time Dr. 



108. ROOSEVELT 

Dernburg protested, and for the first time in his Ufe, the 
Colonel was silenced. 

It must have been almost midnight before both men 
had completed their argument. I chirped in now and then. 
However, this duel of two minds equally matched taught 
me the utter futility of controversy. Neither man had con- 
vinced the other. Their real convictions were fed by deep 
racial roots, hidden in the subconscious, beyond the probe 
of argument. Dr. Dernburg left, believing that his visit 
had not been entirely in vain. Perhaps Mr. Roosevelt 
imagined that he made a convert of Dr. Dernburg. I know 
that neither had made the slightest impression upon the 
other. I saw that the chasm between the two states of 
mind (or of heart) could not be bridged. Freud (in his 
little book on "Reflections on War and Death") gives us 
the explanation for the spiritual blindness which in times 
of emotional crisis necessarily shuts out the other man's 
point of view. "Even science," he says, "has lost her dis- 
passionate impartiality. Her deeply embittered votaries 
are intent upon seizing her weapons to do their share in 
the battle against the enemy. The anthropologist has to 
declare his opponent inferior and degenerate, the psychia- 
trist must diagnose him as mentally deranged. The lack of 
insight that the greatest intellectual leaders on either side 
have shown, the obduracy, their inaccessibility to the most 
impressive arguments, their uncritical credulity concerning 
the most debatable assertions, all these phenomena," he tells 
us, "are easily explained." He goes on to say: 



ROOSEVELT 109 

"Students of human nature and philosophers have long ago 
taught us that we do wrong to value our intelligence as an 
independent force and to overlook its dependence upon our 
emotional life. They say intellect can -vork reliably only when 
it is removed from the influence of powerful emotional 
incitements; otherwise it acts simply as an instrument at the 
beck and call of our will and brings about the results which the 
will demands. Logical arguments are, therefore, powerless 
against affective interests; that is why disputing with reasons 
which, according to Falstaff, are as common as blackberries, 
are so fruitless where our selfish interests are concerned. 
Whenever possible psycho-analytic experience has driven home 
this assertion. It is in a position to prove every day that the 
acutest thinkers suddenly behave as unintelligently as defec- 
tives as soon as their understanding encounters emotional re- 
sistance, but that they regain their intelligence completely as 
soon as this resistance has been overcome. The blindness to 
logic which this war has so frequently conjured up in our 
best fellow citizens is, therefore, a secondary phenomenon, 
the result of emotional excitement and destined,, we hope, to 
disappear simultaneously with it." 

In the hall, as we said good-bye, I remarked to Mr. 
Roosevelt that he was losing many of his old-time sup- 
porters. "That consideration," he replied quickly, "cannot 
sway me. I know that I am finding myself increasingly 
out of touch with the majority of my fellow citizens. I 
never," he added (though the exact phraseology has es- 
caped me), "was the spokesman of anything but a minor- 
ity." "But your election — " I remarked. "That," he re- 
plied, "was an accident. I accidentally found myself tem- 



110 ROOSEVELT 

porarily in agreement with the majority." The visit to 
Oyster Bay led to a lively exchange of shots between Saga- 
more Hill and 1123 Broadway, the headquarters of Dr. 
Dernburg. One of the Colonel's thundering epistles was 
no less than twelve pages in length. Dr. Dernburg's broad- 
sides were equally voluminous. But, alas! all correspon- 
dence was futile. The two points of view were irreconcil- 
able. It is impossible to argue with the unconscious. 



The Brea\ 



IX. 

LJUMAN beings are carried, swept away, by irresistible 
psychic eddies. My break with Roosevelt was inevita- 
ble. I saw him once more after this. In response to an 
impetuous letter, he invited me to see him. He told me 
that he wanted me to understand him, that I was the only 
one of his German American friends to whom he was will- 
ing to confide some of the underlying reasons for his anti- 
German attitude. He spoke fiercely, impressively. But 
his eloquence failed to convince me. "Germany," he 
reiterated, *'is a nation without a sense of international 
morality." I had England's innumerable violations of 
international law at my finger-tips. The Germans, he 
assured me, were plotting against us. He referred to Ger- 
many's alleged plans for invading this country. I replied 
that the German Army could not even swim across a nar- 
row strip of the Channel ! Deploring our "softness" and 
lack of preparedness, Mr. Roosevelt made the astonishing 
observation that it might be a good thing for Uncle Sam 
to receive a licking at the hands of the Germans. I could 
not agree with his point of view. I did not believe in 
German intrigue. The Department of Justice had not 
made its revelations. The Zimmerman note — the deadliest 
blow against Pro-German sentiment in the United States — 
slumbered still in the deepest recesses of the war-crazed 
brain of a German Geheimrat. 



A 



114 ROOSEVELT 

I ceased to look upon Theodore Roosevelt as a friend. 
My secret animosity was ready to leap forth, or, to speak 
more scientifically, the other pole of my ambivalent atti- 
tude towards the Colonel deflected the needle of my affec- 
tion. **Many impulses," to quote Freud once more, "appear 
almost from the beginning in contrasting pairs ; this is a re- 
markable state of affairs, called the ambivalence of feeling, 
and is quite unknown to the layman. This feeling is best 
observed and grasped through the fact that intense love and 
intense hate occur so frequently in the same person. 
Psychoanalysis goes further and states that the two op- 
posite feelings not infrequently take the same person as 
their object." I was beginning to hate Theodore Roose- 
velt. Yet, strange to say, this hatred in no way diminished 
my love for him. In fact, my love intensified my recoil. 



Crossing Swords 



X. 

/^N February 25th, 1915, I wrote Theodore Roosevelt 
a letter that was a challenge. It was hot-tempered, in- 
judicious, perhaps, but it represented my feelings. To-day 
I know that I am a better poet than a prophet. I no longer 
claim infallibility as a historian. I have been mistaken 
too often. Even at the risk of courting offense, I shall 
print the correspondence in full, to keep the record 
straight. 

OFFICE OF GEORGE SYLVESTER VIERECK 

February 25th, 1915. 

My Dear Mr. Roosevelt: — I take pleasure in sending you 
the text of my debate with Cecil Chesterton. 

I certainly regret that you have taken a point of view so 
unfair to Germany. You have said many things which you 
ought to know to be at variance with the facts, especially in 
connection with Belgium. 

I think you have lost every German-American friend you 
had, with the exception of myself. Even I admit that I am 
deeply disappointed. They would not have objected to your 
attitude that all treaties should be enforced, but they do object 
and justly so — to your continuous insistence upon the violation 
of the so-called "neutrality" of Belgium, while ignoring the 
violation of the neutrality of the Suez Canal and ignoring the 
violation of the neutrality of China. In fact, the violation of 
the neutrality of China is of more importance to us than one 
hundred Belgiums. 

Belgium never was a neutral nation. The neutrality of Bel- 
gium was like the virtue of a cocotte. You need not take my 
word for it that Germany was justified in her course, but 
perhaps you will accept the word of the British Foreign Office. 



118 ROOSEVELT 

For that reason I call your attention to page 14 of my debate, 
in which I quote a passage from a statement issued by the 
English Foreign Office which may have escaped your attention. 

Another cause for the just grievance of the German- Amer- 
icans against you is that, in spite of your reputed friendship 
for the Kaiser, you did not have one word to say for him 
personally when this obscene campaign of vilification was 
started against him in the American press, and when the man, 
whose guest you had been, was decried by British press-agents 
and their American emissaries as "the mad dog of Europe." 

Now Germany no longer needs apologists nor sympathizers. 
Her sword has won the war. But I do not think that the 
Germans will forget the attitude of their fair-weather friends 
on either side of the ocean. 

Faithfully yours, 

George Sylvester Viereck. 
Theodore Roosevelt, Esq., 
Oyster Bay, L. I. 

To this letter, I received the f ollov^ing reply : 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT, 
30 E. 42d Street, 
New York City. 

March 4th, 1915. 

My Dear Sir : — Mr. Roosevelt directs me to say that the tone 
of your letter, and especially of the last paragraphs, is such 
that he does not desire to answer it. 

Yours truly, 
John W. McGrath, 
Secretary to Theodore Roosevelt. 

Mr. George Sylvester Viereck, 
1123 Broadway, 
New York City. 



ROOSEVELT 119 

My answer, dated March 9th, follows : 

OFFICE OF GEORGE SYLVESTER VIERECK 

March 9th, 1915. 

My Dear Mr. Roosevelt : — I received a note from your secre- 
tary which somewhat surprised me. In view of all that I have 
done for you in the past, giving unstintingly of my enthusiasm, 
my personality, it seems that I have earned the right to speak 
frankly to you. 

I presume the sentence to which you object is the reference 
to the "fair-weather" friends of Germany. It seems to me 
indisputable that in your entire public career you have always 
spoken of yourself as a friend of Germany and the Germans. 
Yet in the one great crisis of her existence you are not even 
neutral, but you openly range yourself among her enemies. 
You repeat without thorough investigation the English charges 
against Germany and you do not seem to take the trouble to 
read the German rejoinder. I think that in this matter you are 
utterly in the wrong. For 

" — when the angels fall they fall so far." 

My Progressive training has made it impossible for me to 

see wrong and remain silent. For that reason I must speak 

out even at the loss of your friendship, which, as you know, is 

very dear to me. 

Sincerely yours, 

George Sylvester Viereck. 
Theodore Roosevelt, Esq., 
30 East 42nd Street, 
New York City. 



120 ROOSEVELT 

Six days later, Mr. Roosevelt replied. His answer is a 
masterpiece of invective. His tributes to my understand- 
ing, to my loyalty, to my intellectual accomplishments, are 
forgotten. His pen splutters venom. So, at least, I thought 
at the time. Re-reading the letter now, I feel that he would 
not have written at all if his anger against me had not been 
hitched to the wraith of an old affection. Both dwelled 
simultaneously in his bosom. One also catches in his letter 
an echo of his controversy with Dr. Dernburg. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
Oyster Bay, New York. 

March 15th, 1915. 

My dear Mr. Viereck: — In view of your second letter, I 
think it probable that your first letter was not intentionally 
offensive and that your sending it was due to mental and not 
moral shortcomings : therefore I answer your present letter. 

I referred to the tzvo last paragraphs of your former letter. 
Had you taken the trouble to read my book, "America and 
the World War," you would have seen that I spoke in defense 
of the Kaiser and with appreciation of him. It is of course 
not excusable on your part to criticize what I have written 
without reading it. 

In your last paragraph the insinuation was that I was merely 
a fair-weather friend, whose misdeeds would be remembered 
by the Germans on both sides of the water. [This is of course a, 
no doubt unconscious, distortion of my remark,] Your present 
letter shows that this insinuation, which you did not venture 
to state frankly, was aimed at me ; your basis being that until 
this war I had always "professed friendship for Germany and 



ROOSEVELT 121 

the Germans." You of course cannot be ignorant that I had 
equally "professed friendship" for France and Frenchmen; 
for England and Englishmen. I not only professed it but in 
each case I felt it. What I have said about Germany because of 
her outrageous conduct toward Belgium, I would have said 
exactly as quickly of France and England if they had been 
guilty of similar conduct. Apparently you regard it as fair- 
weather friendship to feel good-will toward a nation and yet 
to condemn that nation when it is guilty of iniquity. Such an 
attitude on your part is of course unutterably silly; if not 
silly, it would be unutterably base. 

You say that I have paid no heed to the facts produced on 
the German side of the case. I have read these "facts" care- 
fully; and I am astounded at the effrontery of those who 
produce them. They establish beyond possibility of doubt that 
Belgium had no intention of permitting any violation of 
neutrality by France or England if Germany did not invade 
her; but that she had grown to feel it likely that Germany 
would do as Germany actually did, namely, break faith, and, 
against every rule of right and of humanity, invade her and 
try to subjugate her; and that of course under these circum- 
stances she was anxious to know whether there would be any 
effective protection for her by the other nations that had 
guaranteed to give this protection. The original statement 
by Bethmann-Hollweg was frank and manly. It admitted 
that Belgium had been wronged and put Germany's case upon 
the only plea, that of national self-preservation, which could 
give it even a semblance of defensibility. The subsequent at- 
tempts to justify Germany by blackening the character of poor, 
unoffending, deeply-wronged Belgium have been peculiarly ig- 
noble. 



THE STORM CLOUDS BURST 



Oyater Bay, New York, 

March 15th, 1915. 

My dear Mr. Viereck: 

In view of your second letter, I think It probable 
that your first letter was not intentionally offensive and that 
yo^^^senv.t ■b eea ' UBO -&-P- mental and not moral shortcomings: there- 
fore I answer your present letter. 

I referred to the two last paragraphs of your former 
letter. Had you taken the trouble to read my book, "America and 
the Forld War", you wovild have seen that I spoke In defense of 
the Kaiser and with appreciation of him. It Is of course not 
excusable on yo\jr part to criticise what I have written without 
reading it. 

In your last paragraph the insinuation was that I was 
merely a fair-weather friend, whose misdeeds would be remembered 
by the Germans on both sides of the water. Your present letter 
shows that this insinuation, which you did not venture to state 
frankly, was aimed at me; your basis being that until this war 
I had always "professed friendship for Germany and the Germans\ 
You of course cannot be Ignorant that I had equally"professed 
friendships^ for France and Frenchmen, for England and Englishmen. 
I not only professed it but in each case I felt it. What I have 
said about Germany because of her outrageous conduct toward Bel- 
gium, I would have said exactly as quickly of France and England 
if they had been guilty of similar conduct. Apparently you re- 
gard it as fair-weather friendship to feel good will toward a 



-2- 

nation and yet to condemn that nation when it Is guilty of In- 
iquity. Such an attitude onyour part is of course UM>^*^un- 
uttcrably silly, im\ unutterably base. 

You say that I have paid no heed to the foots pro- 

duced on the German side of the case. I have read theM caro- 
ls 

fully; and I am astounded at the effrontery of those who produce 
them. They establish beyond possibility of doubt that Belgium 
had no intention of permitting any violation of neutrality by 
France or England if Germany did not Invade her; but that she 
had grown to feel it likely that Germany would do as »£i~acTually 
did, namely, break faith and, against every rule of right and ol" 
hvunanity, invade her and try to subjugate her ; and that of 
course under these circumstances she was anxious to know whether 
there would be any eflective protection for her by the other 
nations that nad guaranteed to give tnis protection. The origin- 
al statement by Pethmann-Hollweg was frank and manly. It admitted 
that Belgium had been wronged and put IH upon tne only ftf^v.^^ ^^., ^ 
plea, that of national 6*617- preser^^lcn.^ The subsequent attempt^ 
to Justify Germany by blackening the character of poor, unoffen- 
ding, deeply-wronged Belgium have been peculiarly Ignoble. 

As you have written to me in such a tone, i g-ive you a 
piece of advice in return. No man can retain nis self-respect 
If he ostensibly remains as an American citizen while he Is really 
doing everything he can to subordinate the interests and duty of 
the United States to the interest* of a foreign land. You have 



-3- 

made It evident that your whole heart is with the country of your 
preference, Germany, and not with the country of your adoption, 
the United States. Under such circumstances you are not a good 
citizen here. But neither are you a good citizen of Cermany. Vou 
should go home to Germany at once; abandon your American citizen- 
ship. If, as I understand, ycu possess It; and serve In the army, 
if you are able, or. If not. In any other position In which you 
can be useful. As far as I am concerned, I admit no divided 
allegiance in United States citizenship; and my views of hyphenated- 
Americans are, those which j»ere once expressed by the Emperor himself, 
when he said. that he understood what Germans were; and he understood 
what Americans were; but he had neither understanding of nor patience 
with those who called themselves German-Americans. 
Very truly yours. 



/K o~-<rlX^^.,.^e^^- 



Mr.- George Sylvester Vlereck, 
Ne» York City. 



I 



ROOSEVELT 125 

As you have written to me in such a tone, I give you a piece 
of advice in return. No man can retain his self-respect if he 
ostensibly remains as an American citizen while he is really 
doing everything he can to subordinate the interests and duty 
of the United States to the interests of a foreign land. You 
made it evident that your whole heart is with the country of 
your preference, for Germany, and not with the country of 
your adoption, the United States. Under such circumstances 
you are not a good citizen here. But neither are you a good 
citizen of Germany. You should go home to Germany at once ; 
abandon your American citizenship, if, as I understand, you 
possess it; and serve in the army, if you are able, or, if not, in 
any other position in which you can be useful. As far as I 
am concerned, I admit no divided allegiance in United States 
citizenship; and my views of hyphenated- Americans are those 
which were once expressed by the Emperor himself, when he 
said to Frederick Whitridge that he understood what Ger- 
mans were ; and he understood what Americans were ; but he 
had neither understanding of nor patience with those who 
called themselves German-Americans, 

Very truly yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 
Mr. George Sylvester Viereck, 

New York City. 

On March 19th, I replied. My answer was stinging. 
Yet between the lines there was still something of 
my old-time admiration. The letter is, of course, intensely 
partisan. In reading it we must remember that it was 
written two years before the German Government and the 
United States were at war. 



126 ROOSEVELT 

OFFICE OF GEORGE SYLVESTER VIERECK 

March 19, 1915. 

My dear Mr. Roosevelt : — I have not yet read your book, 
"America and the World War." I have read your articles in 
the "Metropolitan" and in other places, and it was only to 
those utterances that I referred in my letters. 

I am very glad to hear that you speak in defense of the 
Kaiser and with appreciation of him. Let me point out, how- 
ever, that if you had done that several months ago when the 
Kaiser was really the center of attack you would have rendered 
a greater service to him than now when the attack has spent 
its force. One gun fired while the fortress is besieged is of 
far more importance than a whole arsenal after it has been 
relieved. 

I have no doubt that you have professed friendship for 
France and England just as much as you have professed 
friendship for Germany. But as you have laid just a little 
more emphasis on your friendship for Germany in my pres- 
ence and in the presence of other Americans of German de- 
scent, I may have been working under a misapprehension for 
which I am not to blame. 

As far as the case of Belgium is concerned, I think that it 
is futile to discuss it because, as Muensterberg points out in 
an excellent article, which I take pleasure in enclosing, each 
reader interprets the facts according to his own inclination. 
It is quite possible for two equally able minds to reach dia- 
metrically opposed conclusions from the same evidence. I think, 
however, that your attitude in the Belgian matter is based on a 
misunderstanding of the meaning of neutrality. A neutralized 
state has no right to a foreign policy of its own. It has no 
right to make military conventions such as Belgium did with 
England and France. If it makes such agreements it thereby 
loses its character as a neutral. 



ROOSEVELT 127 

If at present your mind was not colored by pro-British 
sympathies, you would not lay so much stress on the violation 
of the so-called "neutrality" of Belgium. If you could forget 
these perfectly natural sympathies, you would lay far more 
stress on the violation of the neutrality of China. Surely 
any American, free from either Pro-English or Pro-German 
sympathies, would be compelled to admit that the violation 
of the neutrality of China is of far more importance to us 
than the violation of the "neutrality" of Belgium. 

I very strongly resent your insinuation that I am only "os- 
tensibly" an American citizen while really I "subordinate" 
the interests and duties of the United States to the interests 
of a foreign land. My grandfather on my mother's side 
came to this country in 1848. My mother was born in Cali- 
fornia. My father is an American citizen, and so am I, al- 
though I came to this country at the age of eleven from 
Germany. I will not permit any one, even a president of the 
United States, to read me out of the country. 

Your quotation of the remark of the German Emperor does 
not alter my attitude in the least. I am under no obligations 
to him and I owe no allegiance to him whatsoever. He can no 
more determine my status than you or any one else. That is 
a matter which I must settle between my conscience and the 
Constitution of the United States. I think that the Emperor's 
statement is entirely justified from his point of view. Politi- 
cally, as far as the relations of nations among each other are 
concerned, there can be no such thing as a German-American. 
Racially, however, we have certainly the right to call ourselves 
German-Americans. In fact, in a country like this, which 
consists of so many different races, it is inevitable that some 
such classification be made. The only unhyphened American 
is the American Indian. 



128 ROOSEVELT 

Allow me to point out to you that you expressed no indigna- 
tion whatever when I offered to aid you in organizing the 
German-American element in 1912. You did not doubt my 
authentic Americanism when I went on the stump for you. 
You never questioned my patriotism when I wrote the Pro- 
gressive Battle Hymn, Perhaps it is a mistake to speak of us 
as German-Americans. We should speak of ourselves as 
German Americans without the hyphen. There is no more 
reason why I should fight for Germany than why you should 
go and fight for Belgium. Although you are a former presi- 
dent of the United States and I am only a humble poet, there 
is no difference whatever in our rights and duties as Ameri- 
can citizens. If you will go and enlist under the Union Jack 
or join the forces of King Albert of Belgium, then I should 
feel that I would be under obligation to fight for Germany. 

If you say that we are not American citizens, then we will 
reply that you must change your conceptions of "American." 
We believe that it has fallen to us to bring back America to 
a sense of true Americanism. We believe that we are better 
Americans than those who truckle to Great Britain. It is 
perfectly natural that some of our fellow citizens should 
sympathize with Great Britain, just as it is perfectly natural 
that some of us should sympathize with Germany, but the 
interests of this country are identical in this present conflict 
with the interests of Germany. They are not identical with the 
interests of England which now, under the pretence of de- 
claring a paper blockade against Germany, has actually de- 
clared war on American commerce. 

// you have no objection I shall be glad to publish both 
your letter and my reply in The Fatherland. 

Sincerely yours, 

George Sylvester Viereck. 
Col. Theodore Roosevelt, 
Oyster Bay, L. I. 



ROOSEVELT 129 

The following two letters speak for themselves : 

Oyster Bay, 

Long Island, N. Y. 

April 2nd, 1915. 
Dear Sir : — Mr. Roosevelt's letter to you was not written 
for publication. He wrote you privately because of your 
professions of friendship for him in the past; and he does 
not care to permit you to advertise yourself by the publica- 
tion of any correspondence with him. I am writing this at 

Mr. Roosevelt's direction. 

Yours truly, 

John W. McGrath, 

Secretary to Theodore Roosevelt. 

Mr. George Sylvester Viereck, 

New York City. 

OFFICE OF GEORGE SYLVESTER VIERECK 

April 3rd, 1915. 
Mr. John W. McGrath, 

Secretary to Theodore Roosevelt, 
Oyster Bay, L. I. 

Dear Sir: — Mr. Viereck requests me to return your letter, 
as it is unfit to be kept in his files. He is sure that Colonel 
Roosevelt cannot be responsible for anything in such utterly 
bad taste as your communication. 

Yours truly. 

May Binion, 

Secretary to Mr. Viereck. 



A Last Message 



XI. 

A ND yet under the smoldering embers of my reproaches, 
my old-time regard for Roosevelt was still latent. I 
printed Professor Muensterberg's sensational letter, sug- 
gesting Roosevelt as the candidate of the German Amer- 
icans (much to the annoyance of my readers). Still I 
could not have supported him under any circumstance. As 
a matter of fact, I worked hard against him. The hostility 
of the German American element, fostered by me among 
others, was one of the factors that defeated his nomination 
by the Republican Party in 1916. He must have felt that, 
for he expressed his surprise to a mutual friend that I 
should so bitterly oppose him ! I think that, ambivalently, 
he still had a soft spot in his heart for me. But soft spot 
or no, he nevertheless hit hard whenever the opportunity 
presented itself. 

I find in my files one more letter written to Theodore 
Roosevelt on June 13, 1916. 

OFFICE OF GEORGE SYLVESTER VIERECK 

June 13, 1916. 
My dear Colonel Roosevelt :— Within the next few days 
Mitchell Kennerley will publish my new book of verse, "Songs 
of Armageddon," which contains among others my tribute to 
you in 1912. I deeply regret that I am unable to pay a similar 
tribute to you in 1916; but your own action has made it im- 
possible for me to support you. 



134 ROOSEVELT 

I do not see how any American of German descent can 
retain his self-respect without opposing you. I, for one, have 
opposed you not only because of your unjust and unneutral 
attacks on Germany, but because you seem to me to be want- 
ing in that vigorous Americanism which we had a right to 
expect from Theodore Roosevelt. 

Your partisanship appears from this : that while you pro- 
tested against the violation of Belgium, never a word have we 
heard from you against the violation of Greece. Yet Greece 
is a country and Belgium only a monstrosity, a mandrake 
among nations. There is racially no such thing as a Belgian 
people. This seems to have escaped you. You also seem to 
have forgotten that there is such a thing as an Irish race 
and an Irish people. Though you have raised your voice 
against the alleged barbarism of Germany, you have not 
found one syllable to say in condemnation of the murder of 
Pearse and his fellow martyrs. 

The most severe indictment against you, however, has been 
this : that in almost two years you have not uttered a single 
protest against the looting of American mails; British lawless- 
ness on American soil; and the strangulation of our neutral 
commerce in defiance of international law. Instead of assail- 
ing the Allies for their misdeeds you have assaulted American 
citizens for their patriotism. You have attempted to outlaw 
Americans of German descent because they demanded action 
not only against Germany but also against Great Britain. 

I do not write this to increase your bitterness, but because 
it is necessary in order to explain my point of view which is 
also the point of view of millions of my fellow citizens. Your 
attacks upon these citizens jointly with those of Mr. Wilson 
and the propagandists of Great Britain have dragged the 
hyphen into the arena of politics. Mr. Wilson has since de- 
sisted from his attacks; but you continued and around you 



ROOSEVELT 135 

were gathered in battle array the sinister forces of Nativism. 
The result of this has been political division along racial lines. 
If the Knownothing is eliminated the hyphen will disappear 

also. 

The night I had dinner at your house with Dr. Dernburg 
you said to me that you found yourself growing increasingly 
out of touch with your fellow citizens. Knowing this, how 
could you imagine that the munition press, the Morgan inter- 
ests and the Brahmins of New England, were the spokesmen 
of the American people? Mr. Wilson, coming from an aca- 
demic world, could be pardoned for such a mistake. But even 
he reaUzed not very long ago that newspaper opinion and public 
opinion are two different things. You must admit that you 
have misread the heart of the American people. 

This war brought to you the great opportunity of your life. 
If you had championed Americanism and the rights of America 
against the whole world, those who are now your bitterest 
enemies would have been your dearest friends. I feel that 
I have a right to say this to you because from the very begin- 
ning I maintained this attitude in my conversations and in my 
correspondence with you. I regret now that, under the spell 
of your personality, I may not have made this point emphatic 
enough when I was privileged to discuss the matter with you 
in person. 

I write this letter to you because I hope that eventually you 
will begin to realize that those who oppose you now are proba- 
bly better friends and better citizens than those who, after 
leading you into a blind alley with their plaudits, betrayed and 
deserted your cause. 

Believe me, my dear Mr. Roosevelt, 

Sincerely yours, 

George Sylvester Viereck. 
Col. Theodore Roosevelt, 
Oyster Bay, L. I. 



136 ROOSEVELT 

I do not know whether this letter ever reached him. At 
that time my letters frequently went through other hands 
before they reached their destination. The romantic Guy 
Gaunt, Naval Attache of the British Embassy, had ap- 
peared on the scene. While the Grand Fleet of the British 
Empire unlawfully seized my letters on the High Seas, the 
Naval Attache of the British Embassy bribed office boys 
to pilfer my mail at home. 



The Broken Leader 



XII 

y HEODORE ROOSEVELT was the most gracious of 
friends. He also was the most ungracious of foes. 
At first he frequently attacked me, though suppressing my 
identity, for fear of making the welkin ring with my name. 
When the welkin rang, nevertheless, he openly directed his 
fire against me. He inspired the vicious campaign of the 
Vigilantes to blot out my reputation. He wrote in a 
preface that "Germany counts upon such men as Mr. 
Hearst and Mr. Viereck after the war." Even from the 
hospital during his last illness, he issued a manifesto, stat- 
ing that the only supporters of Mr. Wilson's Fourteen 
Theses were "Mr. Wilson, Mr. Hearst and Mr. Viereck." 
When the Authors' League of America, at the suggestion 
of that stern warrior Gertrude Atherton, valiantly dropped 
my name from its roll, Theodore Roosevelt voiced his ap- 
proval. In a letter to the Secretary of the Authors' League 
of America, Mr. Schuler, dated Sagamore Hill, July 11, 
1918, Mr. Roosevelt writes: 

My dear Mr. Schuler:—! cannot be at the meetings of the 
council, but still will be glad to have you say for me that I 
cordially indorse the request for the expulsion of George 
Sylvester Viereck from the league membership. 

Faithfully yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 



140 ROOSEVELT 

I smiled to myself as I recalled: "I have only the 
time to send you this one line of thanks and appreciation 
for all your kindness," and his ringing (if resigned) mes- 
sage of November 4, 1912. 

And yet I could not hate Theodore Roosevelt. There 
was something deep in my heart that went out to him 
at all times. When I realized that he was blinded in 
one eye, when I remembered my glimpse of his pain- 
wracked face, I understood. Tortured and disappointed, 
grief-stricken by the loss of his son, goaded by false 
friends, his body in perpetual anguish, his mind in per- 
petual irritation, Theodore Roosevelt was himself no more. 
Thwarted desires corroded his soul. Careless of conse- 
quences, Theodore Roosevelt sacrificed himself upon the 
altar of prejudice. For him the sinister idol assumed the 
lovely image of patriotism. The strain of intolerance, which 
had appeared many years before in his persecution ot 
the New York World, broadened out until it seemed to 
dominate his entire being. 

Martyrs have died for love of God and man. Roose- 
velt, under the strain of peculiar psychic conditions, 
was willing to die for his hates. He was equally willing 
to consign his political adversaries to the stake. He ex- 
horted his countrymen to shoot German Americans in the 
back, with the fanatical zeal with which his precursors had 
burned witches in Salem. They were the same German 
Americans whose virtues he had so often extolled. It w^iS 
he, not they, who had changed. The preacher of race 



ROOSEVELT 141 

conciliation transformed himself into the Grand Inquisitor 
of Americanism, smelling treason everywhere, casting the 
eye of suspicion in every direction. None, however highly 
placed, was safe from the charge of "Pro-Germanism." 
Unluckily, the majority of his victims were his political 
foes. Nevertheless, one cannot withhold a measure of re- 
spect for his passionate sincerity, even if one must regard 
it as pathological in some of its aspects. Neither can one 
deny a measure of admiration to Thomas de Torquemada. 
Both men were not lacking in grandeur, albeit both were 
victims of some psychosis. 

It is fortunate that the enforcement of the Espionage 
Act was not in the hands of Theodore Roosevelt. He is^ 
nevertheless, responsible for nameless persecution. Para- 
doxically enough, he himself was the most relentless critic 
of the Administration. His vituperation may have served 
the purpose of imbuing our war preparations with new 
vigor, but there is no question that the spear of his wrath 
far overshot the mark. He strengthened the Junkers both 
at home and abroad, giving aid and comfort to the enemies 
of the enlightened policies of the United States. 'The war 
was won eventually not merely by the sword but by moral 
persuasion. Mr. Roosevelt almost wrecked Mr. Wilson's 
great moral offensive. His vitriolic abuse brushed the 
skirts of disloyalty. The Colonel himself never doubted 
the virtue of his motives. No selfish thought, I am ab- 
solutely convinced, entered his consciousness. His uncon- 
scious, however, seethed with unlovely forces seeking an 



142 ROOSEVELT 

outlet in the guise of patriotic devotion. With a false pass- 
word they duped the sentry at the gate, or rushed past 
him impetuously. Roosevelt succeeded completely in de- 
ceiving himself. He w^as less successful in deceiving 
others. The personal animus told of defeated ambition. 
The Roosevelt spleen was obvious even to the casual ob- 
server. No psychoanalyst was needed to diagnose his 
obsession. 

His brain still functioned faultlessly; there was still 
something of the old thunder in his vocabulary; but his 
better self was buried in the subconscious (perhaps be- 
yond resurrection). It is only thus that we can under- 
stand his monstrous attacks on President Wilson. Not his 
polemics (he was entitled to his opposition), but their 
malevolence revolted. To his immediate environment, the 
last phase of Theodore Roosevelt may seem the greatest, 
the most heroic. The infallible instinct of the American 
people rejected his rhetoric. They lost patience with 
him; perhaps they failed to visualize the tragic ele- 
ment in the spectacle of the great solitary figure on Saga- 
more Hill, wearing out his heart in ceaseless vexation. 

Like a morose Bull Moose supplanted by a new genera- 
tion, he bellowed forth his rage : there wxre many to listen, 
but few to heed. His ailment had disturbed not merely 
the physical equilibrium of his inner ear, but his spiritual 
balance. He was a "broken leader" ; having freely spent, 
he was "spent." His gestures were still charged with no- 
bility; a vestige of the old manner still hung about him; 



ROOSEVELT 143 

but the windows of his mind, hke Poe's Haunted Palace, 
were filled with distorted shapes. 

". . . evil things in robes of sorrow, 

Assailed the monarch's high estate 
(Ah, let us mourn ! — for never morrow 

Shall dawn upon him desolate!) . . . 

And travelers now within that valley. 
Through the red-litten windows see 

Vast forms that move fantastically 
To a discordant melody" . . . 

Theodore Roosevelt, for hate of Wilson, recanted on the 
Freedom of the Seas. For hate of Germany, he repudiated 
his creed of Americanism. The shock of pain and dis- 
appointment, sweeping aside all resistances, brought to the 
surface the passions which rest unsublimated at the bottom 
of all human nature. Nothing can convince me tliat there 
were no pearls still hidden beneath the surface. Now and 
then, through troubled waters, one caught a glimpse of the 
buried treasure. The passing away of Theodore Roose- 
velt, so silent, so alone, moved me deeply. And now, by 
the token of ambivalence, my old-time love for him wells 
up. This holds true not merely of my individual case, but 
of the country at large. 

Death has restored Theodore Roosevelt to his pin- 
nacle. He is again the greatest American since Thomas 
Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. He is again the Roose- 
velt of 1904 and of 1912, bearing aloft a sword and a flame. 



144 ROOSEVELT 

The ancients translated their heroes to the Milky Way. We 
moderns clothe them with the immortality of a symbol. 
Divested of his faults, which were many, a man no more 
but a symbol, Theodore Roosevelt dead is greater than 
Theodore Roosevelt living. "The leader, for the time be- 
ing, whoever he may be, is but an instrument, to be used 
until broken and then to be cast aside, and if he is worth 
his salt he will care no more when he is broken than a sol- 
dier cares when he is sent where his life is forfeit in order 
that the victory may be won. In the long fight for right- 
eousness the watchword for all of us is 'spend and be spent.' 
It is of little matter whether any one man fails or succeeds, 
but the cause shall not fail, for it is the cause of mankind." 



George Sylvester Viereck 
and the Critics 



IITHEREAS my opponents affect to depre- 
^ ' catc, not merely my politics, but my verse, 
I cite herezvith in my behalf a host of wit- 
nesses, each a citizen of the Republic of Art 
and Letters. Out of their own mouths (zvhat- 
ever their testimony may be worth) some of 
my most inveterate foes may find themselves 
confuted. 



VERSE— 

Nineveh and Other Poems 
The Candle and the Flame 
Songs of Armageddon and Other Poems. 



ROOSEVELT 147 



"Indeed, a poet of original mind and an exceptionally forcible 
and mag-netic literary gUt"— Richard Lc Gallienne, in the North 
American Review. 

"Shot through with the splendors of Heine, Swinburne and 
KtdLis:'— James Hiinckcr, in the North American Review. 

"Color, passion, music and imagination."— r/z^ Dial. 

"Mr. Viereck has probed the depth of life in some of its phases." 
— Charleston News and Courier. 

"An extraordinary talent reveals itself on every page."— Fr^i> 
Presse, {Vienna). 

"Splendor of language and astonishing dexterity in rhyme and 
rhythm.''— V ossische Zeitung, (Berlin), 

"George Sylvester Viereck is Germany's first contribution to 
American literature." — Professor Hugo Muensterherg, of Harvard 
University, before the Boston Authors Club. 

"One of the most brilliant and remarkable personalities of the 
time. . . . One of whom the world is talking much to-day, and will 
talk of much more in days to come." — /. William Lloyd, in the 
Conservator. 

"A new phenomenon in American verse. The contrast between 
his poems and those of Longfellow or Bryant is as striking as any- 
thing in literature." — Francis Lamont Pierce, in Moods. 

"Undisputably a poet." — Clayton Hamilton, in the Bookman. 

"He speaks in spontaneous and eloquent verse, melodious with 
memories of the recurrent haunting harmonies of Poe, the sea- 
surge of Mr. Swinburne, and the plangent tenderness of Oscar 
Wilde, and ringing also with a certain hammerblow of passion 
which is entirely his own." — Clayton Hamilton, in the North 
American Review. 

"A gift straight from the gods." — Edward H. Clement, in the 
Boston Transcript. 



148 ROOSEVELT 

"Swinburne — for gocMJ or ill — has taught him much. . . . On one 
reading you pronounce him a decadent. But if you read again 
(and every poet can properly expect to be read twice and thrice 
before being judged) you must admit some noble elements of 
thought and strength and pathos. His early maturity of art is 
only more remarkable than the breadth and depth of some of his 
conceptions." — William Ellcry Leonard, in the Boston Transcript. 

"A slight affectation of cynicism and of worldly wisdom sits not 
ungracefully upon him, but one forgets and forgives it easily 
enough in view of the passionate sincerity of his best poems. For 
of one thing there is no doubt : Viereck has lived these poems of 
his." — Ludwig Lewisohn, in the Sewanee Review. 

"Perhaps no poet now writing is more proficient in the loud sym- 
phonious lay." — Atlantic Monthly. 

"Awakened the profound amazement of two continents." — 
Madeleine Doty, in the New York Times. 

"The artist is there, the genius and the master." — The Philadel- 
phia Record. 

"Bold to the point of audacity, but his treatment of themes 
which in inferior hands might easily be repellent, is spiritualized 
by the purity of his imagery and the splendor of his ever-musical 
verse." — Boston Courier. 

"The fire of genius is in him, not the ignis fatuus of decadence. 
The New World poet has arrived." — Philadelphia North American. 

"Mr. Viereck has already attained a position among the fore- 
most leading writers of verse." — Cleveland Plain Dealer. 

"Mr. Viereck is not bound by a land or a tongue, for he is a 
singer in the world chorus with Catullus, Anacreon, Moore, Bau- 
delaire, Wilde." — Louisville Herald. 

"Talent, Mr. Viereck has — talent and a wonderful sense of poetic 
art; and courage, too." — New York Evening Sun. 

"Mr. Viereck reveals a vast knowledge of life. . . . That he pos- 
sesses gifts of no mean order and the lyrical power that can- 
not fail to raise him to a high place among modern poets there is 
no gainsaying." — Charles Hanson Towne, of the Vigilantes, in 
Town Topics. 



ROOSEVELT 149 

"The most promising figure in our poetic horizon." — Chicago 
Evening Post. 

"Since the marvellous Chatterton, it is doubtful whether there 
has appeared so mature a mind in so young a body as is displayed 
in the genius of George Sylvester Viereck." — Chicago Examiner. 

"The most individual of modern poets. ... A picturesque per- 
sonality which he transcribes into every line of his work." — Denver 
Republican. 

"He cannot be called a minor poet." — Boston Advertiser. 

"What Mr. Viereck may do is hard to prophesy in his present 
level of youthful achievement. But it is difficult to believe that he 
will not some day reach still higher levels." — Boston Transcript. 

"There is in him that divine spark which we call genius." — Har- 
vey Maitland Watts, in The Fortnightly. 

"There can be no question that he possesses in a high degree that 
quality of finality which he accepts as the ultimate criterion of art. 
Critics have laid special stress upon the passion and color and 
movement of his poetry, upon its dynamic forces of emotion and 
upon the sensuousness, now harsh, now suave of his imagery. Cer- 
tainly Mr. Viereck possesses these things in a striking degree, but 
we prefer as more fundamental to dwell upon his idealism, upon 
the manner in which his poems seem to take shape in his mind 
and spring into life not through beautiful words or seducive 
measure alone, but through the active operation of the intellect." — 
William Aspenvmll Bradley, in the New York Times Saturday 
Review of Books. 

"Not in a decade perhaps has any young person been so unan- 
imously accused of being a genius. And Viereck agrees very 
heartily with his accusers." — Isaac F. Marcosson, in the Saturday 
Evening Post. 

"A remarkable and charming poet. ... I should say from what 

I know of him that Viereck would not be very strongly American 

or German or anything else except poetic. . . ." — Ellis Parker 

Butler, of the Vigilantes and the Advisory Council of the Authors' 

League of America, in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. 



150 ROOSEVELT 

"George Sylvester Viereck may not be a good American, but 
he is a good American poet." — Montgomery Advertiser. 

"Mr. Viereck is a poet as well as a patriot." — Victor Rosewater, 
in the Omaha Bee. 

"He is a prince o£ a poet." — The Era (East Aurora). 

"The good poets of America can be counted on one hand by a 
hero just returned from the front who had nine fingers shot away. 
This poet is Mr. Viereck." — Aleister Crowley, in The International. 

"To write beautifully in a language not that of one's native land, 
is given to few poets. Most of the contemporary poets are at least 
one generation removed from Europe, Mr. George Sylvester Vier- 
eck being a distinguished exception." — Joyce Kilmer, in the Lit- 
erary Digest. 

"You may be shocked by Mr, Viereck's poems, but you will read 
them and you will find yourself remembering many lines un- 
consciously for their clean-cutness, their rhyme and rhythm. 
Hyphenated or not, George Sylvester Viereck is a poet and a poet 
with a punch." — William Marion Reedy, in the St. Louis Mirror. 

"Marked by Teuton vigor and aggressiveness impossible to over- 
look. Mr. Viereck has done some daring things in poetry in the 
past, but in this book, although he by no means verges on mild- 
ness, his voice is tempered and restrained by a deeper note of sin- 
cerity and pathos. . . . There is perhaps no poet living in America 
to-day who possesses more facility in verse form than Mr. Vier- 
eck. He is always dexterous in effect and execution, always 
prodigal in color and swing and imagery." — Blanche Shoemaker 
Wagstaff, in the Poetry Journal. 

"Marked by virility and imagination. There is a dash and swing 
to his lines that stir the pulses. He succeeds in making his voice 
heard above the inharmonious jangle." — San Francisco Bulletin. 

"There are lovely things, even great things in "Nineveh." — Edi- 
torial in the New York Times Saturday Review of Books. 

"His airy spires and minarets of imagery and music are based 
upon the solid rock of human experience." — Elsa Barker, in the 
New York Times. 



ROOSEVELT 151 

"Worthy of the proudest name in the language— poet. Should 
such a poem as the 'Haunted House' be printed anonymously in 
the obscurest journal in the land, it would instantly attract the 
attention of every critic and poetry lover."— Edwin M. Robinson, in 
the Cleveland Leader. 

"Viereck has surely 'touched the magic string.' "—Augusta 
Chronicle. 

"All deductions made, all regrets scored, his book comes nearer 
being great poetry than anything that is recent."— Indianapolis Star. 
"Fine and sure technique . . . genuine lyrical gift."— Don Mar- 
quis, in Uncle Remus s Magazine. 

"His consciousness of life is incandescent in its intensity."— 
Chicago Tribune. 

"Saturated with the music of two languages."— Dti/Mf/i News- 
Tribune. 

"Remarkable imaginative endowment and technical mastery."— 
The Nation. 

"Few young writers of verse born in this country have ever 
written a clearer, more straightforward and simple, or more vigor- 
ous English style."— Cincinnati Inquirer. 

"Gems of exquisite poetry, poems shimmering with rainbow 
coloring, verse unsurpassed in virility, steel-forged structures 
created from the red-hot iron of a powerful imagination."— T. Ever- 
ett Harre, author of "Shadow Huns," in the Philadelphia North 
American. 

"Brother to Baudelaire, cousin German to Heine, pupil of Poe, 
disciple of Swinburne, Rosetti and Oscar Wilde; yet for all that, 
arrayed in singing robes of his own original diction.. . . There is 
nothing anaemic in his work." — Life. 

"The work ... is, as a whole, loftily imagined and pleasing." 
— Edinburgh Scotsman. 

"His volume of poems has taken the literary world by storm, and 
has aroused even the sleepiest cr[iics."—Smart Set. 

"An appealing singer, the most talented this country has heard 
in many yesirs."— Boston Advertiser, 



152 ROOSEVELT 

"Just as Wilde divorced the English drama from ethics, so has 
Viereck divorced American poetry from morality. . . . Only the 
stringent moralists will deny that Viereck is a true poet. Some- 
thing of the plumage of Wilde, the music of Heine, the diabolism 
of Baudelaire, the beef of Rabelais, has got into his poetry. He 
has dared score his pot-hooks in the key of C sharp." — The Ring- 
master, in Town Topics. 

"Judged artistically, Viereck's book measures high — far higher 
than 'Nineveh.' He has attained in 'The Candle and the Flame,' a 
lyric intensity which at times is little short of marvelous. . . . 

"Viereck explains that this is to be his last book of poetry. . . . 
Alas, America is to lose one of her brightest, perhaps her very 
brightest, poetic luminary ! A loss, indeed, it is in a country where 
the bosh-bard is triumphant, where genius is almost unknown, 
where we still cling pathetically and touchingly to the idea that 
James Whitcomb Riley is a great poet, where verse is bought and 
paid for by the inch, where Henry Van Dyke, Richard Burton, 
Cale Young Rice and Florence Earle Coates are written about 
eloquently by our leading critics, where our standards of poetic 
taste are based on moralistic superstitions and mediaeval theology, 
where sentimentality takes the place of emotion and where in- 
sipidity is the criterion of magazine acceptances." — Willard Hunt- 
ington Wright, in the Los Angeles Times. 

"Only in the light of the circumstances that we failed to throw 
off the yoke of Great Britain through our revolutionary war it is 
possible to interpret the message of George Sylvester Viereck. . . . 

"The United States, then, is eighteen century England with giant 
corporations instead of the great landlords. Every now and then 
the British rediscover us and we get a new idea. It seemed as if 
this would have to go on forever. Suddenly the Liberator ap- 
peared. His name is George Sylvester Viereck. . . . 

"Had George Sylvester Viereck been born in England and had 
his verse come back to us from London, there would have been 
no more notion of his decadence than of Meredith's or Brown- 
ing's. Had George Meredith or Robert Browning been Ameri- 
cans, no one in this country would have heard of them until some 
Englishman wrote in the 'Saturday Review' that they are great. 
Think of Whistler ! . . . 

"It is the grand originality of George Sylvester Viereck to be 
unable to look at life, at poetry, at humanity through English eyes. 
He sees them with his own. . . . 

"What Hamilton achieved for us politically is to be wrought in a 
wider sphere, let us hope, by George Sylvester Viereck." — Alexan- 
der Harvey, in the St. Louis Mirror. 



PROSE— 

A Game at Love and Other Plays 
The House of the Vampire 
Confessions of a Barbarian 



154 ROOSEVELT 

"Mr. Viereck's idea is not to write long plays and books leading 
his characters through a maze of psychology, but to present their 
lives at the climacteric moment. . . . This is an ambition which 
any writer of fine fiction or drama will appreciate as being at once 
admirable and difficult of attainment. But one does not hesitate 
to bear witness that Mr. Viereck has done what he set out to do." 
— Chicago Tribune. 

"For originality and artistic distinction the work of George 
Sylvester Viereck deserves special attention." — New York Evening 
Post. 

"We would give millions, if we had them, if all the writers and 
spouters after whom the crowd runs, could use the English lan- 
guage one-half so well as does George Sylvester Viereck in his 
little book of plays." — New York Evening Mail. 

"A literary form of uncommon greatness and seductiveness." 
— The Nation. 

"We find in Mr. Viereck's plays the same youthful fire, imagina- 
tion and originality in thought and expression which brought him 
glowing praise for his verse. He is a born artist in composition." 
— Town and Country. 

"Variegated and flexible style, full of color, music and mental 
sparkle." — St. Louis Mirror. 

"High and rare literary qualities . . . subtle character sketches 
with a peculiar charm and pathos." — Philadelphia North American. 

"Mr, Viereck has dealt boldly, yet subtly with problems of 
modernity. . . . His characters talk Nietzsche, and delight in emo- 
tional gymnastics. But under each of these plays lies a great, vital, 
eternally human truth." — Buffalo Courier. 

"Too highly colored for complete purity of tone, too elliptical 
in spite of its admirable conception of phrase to escape the fre- 
quent charge of obscurity, his prose was, nevertheless, by virtue 
of the high emotional imaginative level maintained throughout, a 
very remarkable achievement and immediately recognized as the 
prose of a poet." — William Aspenwall Bradley, in the New York 
Times Saturday Review of Books. 



ROOSEVELT 155 

"With gripping fidelity of portrayal this vampire of genius is 
projected into life. It is quite clear, both as regards his appearance 
and his effect on others, that this vampire could have been con- 
ceived only upon the soil of America with its mystical and sym- 
bolical currents. The book in style and theme has a cultural and 
historical value which far surpasses the transient interests of the 
day." — Lokalansciger {Berlin). 

"The idea is original and the form is well wrought and brought 
to an end which justifies and expresses the whole course of action. 
The idea is one I begin to believe in, in the metaphysical sense; 
moreover, I have often said that the general intelligence of all 
England had to suffer that we might have one Shakespeare and 
one Coleridge. But Mr. Viereck has made a really impressive 
story out of a symbol. It rather suggests Wilde, but Wilde would 
have spoilt it by decoration and left it vague in the end. There 
is certainly force in it and it insists on being read straight 
through." — Arthur Symons. 

"This is an intense book. ... It is just the right sort of book 
for us children of an age that is so well versed in the fourth di- 
mension that it can cite ghosts like servants. The idea that a 
genius is merely an incarnation of the intellectual values of his 
age, clearly expressing what labors obscurely in the minds of all, 
may be fantastic, but it is certainly well worthy of serious thought 
and investigation." — Nachrichten {Hamburg). 

"In this, his first story, George Sylvester Viereck who astonished 
the world as a poet will astonish it more as a teller of tales." — Los 
Angeles Times. 

"A new sensation in literature." — Salt Lake City Tribune. 

"Regarded as a bit of purely imaginative literature, it may be 
classified under the same head as 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' and 
The Picture of Dorian Gvsiy.'"— Philadelphia Record. 

"The story is not, as has been said of it, morbid, because there 
is left behind it a conception too large for morbidness." — Min- 
neapolis Tribune. 

"Not since 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' has there been such an 
uncannily clever novel. ... It is an experiment in empyric psy- 



156 ROOSEVELT 

chology whose style suggests the staccato sophistication of Edgar 
Saltus and much of the brilliancy and the rhythmic diction of 
Oscar Wilde. . . ." — St. Louis Mirror. 

"The story grips the mind constantly ... a little too much for 
midnight repose, and that is a tribute." — Atlanta Constitution. 

"A tale of horror, keyed from the first word to the last in the 
highest key of tragic emotion." — New York Times. 

"The book takes hold of you with sinister effect, and the shade 
of the 'Vampire' remains hovering about long after the closing 
words have been read." — Pittsburgh Index. 

"Tremendous power. ... It is not a pleasing story but a mar- 
velous one." — Buffalo Courier. 

Mr. Viereck is justified in his work and there is sufficient evi- 
dence that if he began as a Wunderkind, he is maturing into a true 
and finished artist." — Wm. H. Watts, in the Philadelphia Press. 

"The idea of the spiritual vampire which we have had in litera- 
ture before is here brought by Mr. Viereck at least to the very 
edge of the Theosophical principle of mystery which underlies it." 
— Joseph Edgar Chamberlin, in the New York Evening Mail. 

"A force to be reckoned with in the literary world." — Louisville 
Courier and Journal. 

"It is as brilliant in its way as his poems." — Cambridge Tribune. 

"His style in many ways inevitably confesses the poet." — Michael 
Monahan, in the Papyrus. 

"The reader of the 'House of the Vampire' is drawn as the 
magnet draws the metal, yea, as the spider engulfs the fiy."— Port- 
land Oregonian. 

"A book that captivates the mind of whoever picks it up." — 
Chicago Tribune. 



"The Confessions of a Barbarian'" are just the kind of irritant 
that is needed by a people who fancy themselves imperial when 
they are, in fact, only parochial. There's some mighty good de- 



ROOSEVELT 157 

mocracy too, let me tell you, in Mr. Viereck's apparently unquali- 
fied approval of some of the methods of democracy and autocracy. 
He writes about things that young men rarely dare to write about 
in this country. They are things that are a very integral part of 
life, of letters, of art. They are the things the ignoring of which 
in American life, letters and art is responsible for the fact that 
we can hardly be said as yet to have either letters or art, or even 
a life that has any other purpose than the shaping of all our brain 
convolutions into dollar marks."— fF^//taw^ Marion Reedy, in the 
St. Louis Mirror. 

"As Moore made English and American readers appreciate the 
true point of view with which one should regard French life, and 
especially the French artistic genius, so Viereck makes it very 
clear to one why Germany is a great nation and how far the Ger- 
mans surpass us in appreciation of the amenities of life and in 
the enjoyment of the harmony and beauty of the artistic work in 
poetry, painting, music and other arts. The author has no false 
shame; he has the candor and the lack of self-consciousness that 
mark Rousseau of the old sentimental age and of George Moore 
of to-day. He says savage things of American life, but there is 
no malice in them any more than there is in his sharp strictures 
on German life and a character. ... In the tail of every para- 
graph is an epigram or a paradox. Reading them is like watching 
bomb skyrockets explode ; one never knows what new combination 
or effect will be produced."— 5a;t Francisco Chronicle. 

"The spectacle of young Viereck spanking two nations in his 
'Confessions of a Barbarian' is enough to arouse the marble bust 
of his once famous grandmother, Edwina Viereck, at the Royal 
Theatre of Berlin ; or to stir the envy of the first and only Shavian 
G.B.S. . . . His book is flown with the frank insolence and effer- 
vescing wine of briUiant youth."— James Huneker, author of 
"Overtones," "Iconoclasts," etc. 

"Your 'Confessions of a Barbarian' are great— the best ever." 
— Elbert Hubbard. 

"It is needless to say that the book is worth while. It is in fact 
very remarkable. It will make every thinking person think. It is 
very diverting." — Pittsburgh Dispatch. 



158 ROOSEVELT 

"He writes cleverly — and more than cleverly at times — and he 
usually has something to say. . . . And because the writer's per- 
sonality is interesting and his art undeniable, the book has its 
charm." — New York Times. 

"One hopes that he will go on producing literature of this per- 
sonal sort. We need some leaven of that kind in our arid waste of 
cut-and-dried print. 'Confessions of a Barbarian' is equally en- 
tertaining whether you are American or European; the contrast 
between the countries and the peoples are skilfully and boldly 
drawn." — Town Topics. 

"This book of Mr. Viereck's is needed in America. It is a 
small book, but it is a book in the right direction. In it there is 
intellectual and temperamental enjoyment. ... In one sense there 
is genius in the book . . . many things are said in so individual a 
way that the fact of genuine perception is apparent." — The Book- 
man. 

"The book contains some of the most brilliant remarks which 
have been made about the two countries." — Prof. Hugo Muenster- 
herg, author of "The Americans," etc. 

"There seems to be nothing in the way of his becoming one of 
the best known and admired writers in the English language. At 
present his outlook is narrow, but his thought strikes deep root 
. . . worthy of a place in every library." — Boston Courier. 

"It is one of the best things of its kind ever done and ranks 
with Moore's 'Confessions of a Young Man' and Wilde's 'Inten- 
tions.' I knew you were a genius and expected you to write fine 
prose as well as poetry, but was not prepared for so much ma- 
turity of thought and observation. It has all sorts of delights in 
it and you even show your tact in your audacity and youthful 
egotism. They might almost be calculated, not quite, however: 
they ring true. It is really a remarkable work." — Gertrude Ather- 
ton, Member of the Vigilantes and of the Advisory Council of the 
Authors' League of America. 

"The book is shocking as it should be. It is very exceptional, 
stands almost alone among American books, because it assumes 
that Americans may be, and perhaps are in some respects, rela- 



ROOSEVELT 159 

tively inferior, futile, and stupid. . . . Your book is an acid to 
cut the grease of our unctuous complacency. ... It is not neces- 
sary to agree with what you say in order to be filled with delight 
at the freedom and face with which you say it. The 'Confessions 
of a Barbarian' is a memorable event because for the first time 
in the history of American letters our national smugness is in- 
vaded by a stimulating and poetic shudder of self-scorn." — Dr. 
Charles Ferguson, author of "The University Militant," etc. 

"Warranted to chase away the megrims and add to the world's 
measure of literary brilliancy." — Philadelphia North American. 

"His brain is a diamond that flashes forth experience in phrase 
and epigram without end. . . . Startling ideas tumble over each 
other. . . . The book is assuredly an astonishing work. It sparkles, 
goads and irritates, it invites admiration and profanity." — Cleve- 
land Plain Dealer. 

"Mr. Viereck has written not only verse of blood and fire, we 
must go back to the Confession of St. Augustin to find an equally 
straightforward self-portrait. It is most difficult to speak two 
languages correctly, but to express one's inmost and finest emo- 
tions in two languages is indeed a difficult task. Viereck ac- 
complishes both. We must go back to the fourth century to find 
a similar instance." — Dr. A. Brandl, Professor of English Litera- 
ture at the University of Berlin. 

"An unmistakable talent, a gift that is as striking as it is tem- 
peramental. After considerable achievements as a German lyrist, 
Viereck turned to English as a vehicle for his poetry. In his 
novel, "The House of the Vampire," he follows in the footsteps 
of Poe. His conception is curious and original. The book con- 
tains much psychological sublety. In the "Confessions of a Bar- 
barian" Viereck reveals himself as a brilliant stylist. May his 
Christian names foreshadow his future. Like St. George may he 
battle with the dragon of bigotry wherever it raises its head, and, 
like St. Sylvester, may he help to usher in the New Year."— L«(f- 
wig Fulda. 



BOOKS BY 
GEORGE SYLVESTER VIEF 


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Roosevelt, A Study in Ambivalence 


A Game at Love and Other Plays 

Nineveh and Other Poems 

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The House of the Vampire 

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Confessions of a Barbarian 

(Also published in German.) 
The Candle and the Flame 


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The Viereck-Chesterton Debate 

Songs of Armageddon and Other Poems.. 

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